The packing before the storm

I've written before, though probably not on this particular blog, about how much I like to make lists.  As my mother says, we are a list-making people!  Lists, lists, and more lists, and packing lists are my absolute favorite.  (I know, can I be any more of a geek?)  A few years ago, when J was still a baby, I finally started typing out my packing lists for trips and then opening up the list for the previous trip and editing and saving it again for the upcoming trip.  Doing this has made my packing so very much easier, I can't imagine why I didn't do it earlier!  I'm a very obsessive methodical packer, so having all the lists in one place makes me very happy!

Frankfurt's list was the first one in a long time that did not include any specifically baby or infant or toddler items.  Gone are the diapers and binkies, even the training pants, and I love how little we need to travel now.  We still bring sippy cups but only because I would rather use a cup with a lid on the plane than end up with a lap full of ice cold 7-Up (not that I have any personal experience with that).  We could just as easily use their water bottles if I could find all the lids for those.  And I'm a stickler for bringing children's Tylenol because my children have a sad habit of getting sick on vacations and Tylenol helps with a world of ills (including, ahem, drugging them on a plane if worst comes to worse, not that I have any personal experience with that, either).  And each child has a stuffed animal they sleep with, Moose and Baby Fox respectively, but that's about it as far as little kid items go.

NOW we bring lots of supplies for drawing, some little toys that would have been choking hazards not too long ago, card games, quite a few books as usual, and our electronics that double as toys in a pinch.  And our preparations are completely different now, too.  A few nights before we left, the husband and I attempted (and were finally marginally successful) downloading a few movies and cartoons onto our iPads as a back up for a faulty airplane entertainment system (I've heard too many horror stories not to do this now).  The husband also played a certain video game involving sharks that the boys love long enough to get the elusive Great White Shark, which will ensure that they stay entertained for as long as we let them play.

Under normal circumstances, our snack list would still be basically the same, but Qatari snack availability has changed our basic template.  We can still do carrot sticks and apples, but this time we are also including pretzels (because Goldfish are no longer a snack food but a premium indulgence), some strange but good crackers, gummy things (what, pray tell, is the world's love affair with all things gummy all about?  Here you have two choices only: gummy or chocolate.  Oh, and Mentos!), tic tacs, and Juicy Fruit, both of which E loves, these bizarre breadsticks you dip in chocolate that J loves, and perhaps Qatar's version of granola bars, which are basically gussied up rice krispy treats dipped in chocolate.  Healthy?  No.  Yummy?  The kids say so.  I am splurging on individually waxed cheeses because they are so good for traveling even though I had to grit my teeth while buying them. I bring many, MANY snacks, one could argue an excessive amount, but the key to happiness in flights is occupying the kids and food with many pieces and some sugar can be very helpful!

And because all quote-unquote travel bloggers with a capital T include lists of the favorite things they love to pack always and forever, I'll post mine here:

• Mead Five Star two pocket folder with stay put tabs.  These are strong, sturdy, poly-laminate folders in bright colors (mine current folder is green, of course).  I use to keep all travel docs organized and protected in my carry-on or purse.  Yes, I could keep all this info on my phone, but I'm very old school.
• Lightweight fabric bag.  I use this as a purse, a tote bag, a grocery bag, whatever I need it for while we travel.  It weighs nothing and isn't valuable or sentimental so if it gets ruined or lost I'm not put out and it expands to hold all my kids' ever-increasing stuff that seems to accumulate during a day of travel.
• Extra outfit in my carry-on.  EVERY time I forget to do this for both myself and the boys, I regret it.  This is a rule I introduced my husband to, and he now follows it religiously as well.  Whenever I start to think I might not do this, I remember my father's move to London a few years back when his clothes didn't arrive for a week!  
• A noise maker and extra batteries.  When I travel back to the States, we have one we leave there that we love.  But we also have a very small, battery-operated clock radio that we tune to static when we need it.  My kids now only sleep with the sound of the air-conditioning, but we all sleep so much better when there is some sort of white noise around, and hotels are inevitably loud when we stay in them.
• Headlamp or book light.  We have not graduated into staying in more than one room, which means we either all go to bed when the boys do, or we have something available to help us stay up a little longer.  Kindles or iPads or the like can illuminate themselves but aren't a lot of help when you want to read a good, old fashioned book or find your way through unfamiliar surroundings without waking up with little boys.
• Pass the Pigs Pig Party game.  This game requires no board and no set-up, makes no noise when you play it, and is easy enough that E could play it before he turned 3.  This particular version comes in its own zipper pouch and you can even fit another similar game in there if you want.  This trip I am including Greed in my Pass the Pigs pouch for double the fun!  Always, always carry something to while away waiting time in case the electronics fail!

There's more, but those are the tried and trues that come to mind today.  Back to packing!  I'll let you know how it all went on this little jaunt very soon!

Traveling the web

In getting ready for our trip to Frankfurt, I have been amazed anew at how many travel blogs there are out there and yet how rarely is any one of them comprehensive, even in the specific areas they are targeting, such as flying with infants or family tours of Europe or what have you.  In addition, I feel as if there is so very much repetition on these sites, particularly when it comes to family travel tricks of the trade.  Is what I want to see so hard to do?  I want a site with comprehensive coverage of a significant number of destinations, with an emphasis on family friendly locations, particularly those off the beaten path, along with the basics in family travel (gear recommendations, tips and tricks, packing lists, etc.) augmented by unique, out-of-the-ordinary discoveries for family travel.  Is that really so hard??

Apparently so, since no such site appeared during my endless and obsessive research, UNTIL the heavens opened and I stumbled upon Travel for Kids.

This site has it all: location guides covering destinations on six continents, recommendations for family hotels in many major cities, loads of travel tips concerning every phase of your potential trip, links to reputable family tour companies if you want someone else to do all the planning for you, reviews of helpful travel apps, and even information on passports and visas and a currency converter!  It's one stop shopping (especially if your destination is one of the ones for which they have a guide--and yes, there is a guide for Frankfurt--hooray!).  Best of all, they include picture and chapter book recommendations for every location they review!  GENIUS!  I love that idea!  (I would love it even more if I were in a place where I had libraries from which I could check out these books, but that's my problem, not theirs!)  We will definitely be visiting some of the places they have pointed us to on our German escapade and I will report back on how it all went, of course, but I feel that we are much better off for having been armed with all the resources available from Travel for Kids!

I did, finally, come across some other new (to me) travel ideas while I was doing my research.  For instance, one site recommended that I let my kids watch a DVD series called Travel With Kids (not the same) and while I found that the destinations with this series available were a bit limited, my search revealed that there are many travel DVD titles available to stream for free with Amazon Prime.  So I am going to watch those that visit Frankfurt and environs and get all sorts great ideas for our trip!

While looking for Frankfurt sites, I have also been thinking about gear for our future adventure trips, and one question that I have returned to is why haven't there been any major advancements in the area of money/passport concealment?  How can it be that one is still basically limited to the same uncomfortable and not particularly user-friendly money belts and neck pouches I used when I was backpacking in Europe many...ahem...some years ago?  Turns out, there HAVE been a few new ideas out there, but you really have to look hard to find some of them.  P-cubed Pick-Pocket Proof Pants seem very promising and have been getting all sorts of positive reviews like this one from my very favorite travel gear review site ever, Practical Travel Gear.  But my favorite new product is the Sholdit, a patent-pending infinity scarf with a secret zipper pocket inside to stow your money or your passport or both (though I really hate the name!).  SUCH a good idea!  It's available directly from the Sholdit site or through Travelsmith or Amazon but shhhhhh, I wonder if I could make one of these myself...and by I, I mean my mother, of course, because she is much better at that sort of thing, i.e. sewing, than I am!

What I miss most right now

Living abroad requires a constant set of negotiations.  One of the balancing acts I'm learning how to manage is finding a way to remember the things we left behind while not dwelling on them so much I start to get dissatisfied with our current lives.  My response to this is to try not to think about what we are missing and focus on what we get to do here that we never would have done in Cleveland or anywhere else for that matter.  I try to keep the kids' spirits up, too, while acknowledging that they miss Shaker Heights and their friends and so many, many other things.  I am the Qatar cheerleader, the desert apologist, the Arabian Gulf cruise's Julie McCoy.  It's very wearing some days.  I see myself become my mother, who used to (and still does) brightly point out all sorts of things along the roads on our long, cross-country trips to keep us interested and entertained.  I used to wonder that she could be so peppy all the time, but now I see how crucial even manufactured pep can be in changing children's moods.  Touché, Sita!

But.

Sometimes there are days when I really miss certain things and will be very happy to see them when we visit the States in the summer.  (See, right there is an example of what I am talking about.  I am very careful not to say "go home" for the summer, even though that is my first instinct, because I want the kids to think of Qatar as home as much as possible and I don't want them to get upset because they still consider Shaker Heights their home and get sad every time they remember they are not there.  My conversations are riddled with these little linguistic tricks I use to--hopefully--help us all adjust and stay adjusted.)

But enough about that!  Today, I am missing retail America.  For all that acquiring things is a national pastime here, retail therapy isn't really done.  People walk into stores, point at what they want, and walk out.  No browsing, no comparison shopping, certainly no impulse control.  Some days I really just want to wander around a TJ Maxx or a Target, you know?  Not even really to buy anything, because I don't need more stuff, as I have said, but it would be nice just to look at things that don't cost twelve quadrillion dollars!  I mean, I appreciate the little touches of some of the malls here, too.  One leaves out baskets of green apples and little water bottles at all the lounge areas throughout the mall.  For free.  Can you imagine such a thing at any mall near you?  But still, these lounges are most often used by women who are exhausted from buying so much, which isn't the same reason I might be using them!

I am also missing simplicity.  Design here is somewhat...overdone for me.  We went to a world trade festival when we first arrived, and I found myself explaining to J that the ornate mirrors and gold treasure chests and intricate glass lamps that make busy Tiffany lamps look positively streamlined were really not my style.  Mommy likes things simple, you see!  But I can't even point to Ikea here as an example because they don't carry quite the same stuff as Ikea USA.  I miss clean lines, for crying out loud!

I also really miss ham!  And boxed stuffing.  And sour jelly beans.  And black beans.  And onion soup mix.  I know, can I be any more prosaic??  I guess it's a good thing that I don't miss anything more profound, right?  Right!  Go Qatar!

That being said, I am very much looking forward to our visit to Germany largely because it gives us all ample opportunity to eat pork.  Bring on the bratwurst and bacon!  Maybe even a spanferkel while we're at it!  Anything with schwein!!

Kicking it

This post is not at all about the Middle East--well, just peripherally it is, just a little bit.  But really, this post is about Veronica Mars!  You see, as some of you know, I was a backer of the Kickstarter campaign to crowdsource the funding for a Veronica Mars movie years after the television show ended abruptly.  For the uninitiated (or for those who couldn't care less about this sort of thing) being a backer meant I made a pledge as part of the campaign that ultimately raised over 5 million dollars.  Mine was a modest pledge, enough to feel like I had contributed and earn myself a t-shirt, a PDF copy of the shooting script, and a digital copy of the movie when it came out.  There were others who pledged much, much more and earned themselves everything from a trip to the premiere(s) to being an extra on the set to an actual speaking role.  I neither had that much money nor was I going to give it to a movie, but I did my small part for the cause.

In truth, when I was re-watching the three seasons on Veronica Mars in preparation for the movie, I realized that somewhere in the middle of the third season I had quit watching, so the end of the show was a revelation for me and had I realized just how much the end left the viewer hanging, I probably would have been even more insistent that I be part of the campaign to tie up loose ends in a movie!

In between the Kickstarter campaign's beginnings and the eventual release of the movie on March 14th, a lot happened for me.  Most importantly, I moved out of the country and far out of the realm of the Kickstarter campaign, though there were people who pledged who lived in Europe and Austrailia and the like, but I was pretty much on the edges of where I assumed the movie would reach when it premiered.  And I was right.  There were premieres in Canada and in various European countries, but I think the closest to me was somewhere in Germany.  And I was not about to fly over there just to see the movie on the big screen!

But not to worry, right?  I got a digital copy of the movie that was sent out to me on the same day as the theatrical premiere so I would be able to watch the movie in the comfort of my own home here in the desert.  Only...there was a problem.  I got my digital download code fine...but it didn't work.  I needed to download a new app and then load the movie onto a new video library in the cloud which the app recognized, but the app wouldn't recognize me or my code nor could I get the cloud library to work properly or at all, really.  I was pretty sick during the week of the premiere, so I calmly emailed customer service and went back to bed, sure I could either work it out when I felt better or when customer service got back to me, whichever came first.  The next day, and the next, I tried again, emailing customer service all along with my progress, or lack thereof.  I finally realized that part of the problem was my computer telling the app I wasn't in North America, the UK, or Europe, so I remedied that problem with my handy dandy VPN service (LOVE this, by the way!) and then tried a few different ways of backing myself into these services to see if I could find a way of leapfrogging the problem areas and then, all at once, I was in!  Success!  So I downloaded the movie as quickly as I could to my iPad and started watching it right then on the desktop, just in case the download failed.  The download functioned perfectly, and I was finally able to watch the movie in its entirety, just a few days after the rest of the world.

Apparently, I was one of the lucky ones.  A significant percentage of backers had problems with the digital downloading and some were even given refunds when they ended up having to purchase the movie in order to watch it at all.  I never did hear from customer service, probably because they were inundated with complaints from these angry backers.  The problem with rabid fans is they are always rabid, particularly when things go wrong!  But I was happy to see the movie at all, especially given my geographical issues.

As for the movie itself (SPOILER ALERT!)...

Sicky

Being sick is the pits.

I haven't been really sick since we came here, thankfully, except for the usual stomach stuff (blah, blah, belch).  Then last week and this one I got hit with a doozy.  E was flirting with croup, as he always does, every 2 months or so, in between his incessant sinus infections, and I got something similar, but apparently worse, since he was only affected at night and I was out for most of last week and still am not quite back.  Sore throat, barking cough, nausea, dizziness, sleeplessness, disorientation, body aches, check, check, triple check.  It's been awful.

And, of course, in the midst of all this we finally had E's birthday party (happy belated 4th birthday!  Your parents are super timely!) and there was school, as usual, and thank goodness the husband was home last weekend and this one or it would have been a catastrophe.  As it was, I basically called in the towel on the kids' party games in favor of them playing in the boys' room and spent a good portion of the party otherwise engaged being sick, but the food was good and the kids were young and had a good time and there were treat bags, so everyone went home happy and I went to bed for the rest of the day.  The next day, I drove the kids to school and came right home and slept for four hours until I had to go pick one of them up, then managed to get to the store for some laundry detergent and take him to the playground until it was time to get the other one and then came home and slowly spiraled downward until the husband got home from work and ordered pizza for dinner and I went to bed again. Rinse, repeat.  I even missed church this weekend, something I so rarely do I can't remember the last time it happened.

Luckily, I feel better now, more or less, though my voice is gone and I still feel dizzy often and I have the sniffles.  But at least I can stay upright, a major improvement.  I even got a load or two of laundry done...or maybe it was two!  Woot!

The underlying problem here is that we don't have a primary care doc or a pediatrician yet.  I keep asking for recommendations and getting very mixed reviews, and I really don't want to wade into the abyss of healthcare in Qatar until I absolutely have to, although by then, of course, it will be too late.  I need to get a pediatrician at the very least since we are on borrowed time with E's cyclical sicknesses and will certainly need an antibiotic before too long AND I really, really need to see a pulmonologist to get some scans taken before I go back to the States in case I need to follow up there.    So those are my goals for the next few months.   E will also need a round of vaccinations soon, if he doesn't need them already, and I think we all need some additional vaccines to keep us a bit more protected here in our second world home.  I think I can wait and have E's done in the US, but the others will undoubtedly be cheaper here or even in Germany when we visit, so I need to get on those as soon as possible.  Wish me luck; I am more certainly going to need it!

This girl's night out!

A few nights ago I went out with some women from church to celebrate a birthday.  I didn't have to leave until the kids were almost ready for bed, so I thought it would be an easy escape.

I was wrong.

The boys screamed and ranted and cried like I was leaving for good.  As the husband pointed out (he was there, by the way.  I wasn't even leaving them with a sitter for crying out loud!), I haven't left to go anywhere by myself at night except for one time since we moved here.  The husband is gone fairly regularly for business dinners or even business trips, but I have stayed at home or taken the boys with me everywhere, every day.  But still, they caterwauled like I was killing them and kept it up until long after I left.

It was heartbreaking to hear, of course, but also completely overblown, so I was only upset for a little while.  And I did have fun, getting to try a Japanese-ish place (I had gyoza, a muddled berries and ginger beer drink, and chili chocolate cake--actually, my meal wasn't Japanese at all, was it?  There was also teriyaki and some noodle dishes, so I guess they can still say they're Japanese, even though I would argue the connection is pretty tenuous!) and getting to chat with some new women.  I am a little starved for adult conversation some times over here right now!

On the way back, I chatted with the husband about how the boys made out.  He was understandably upset about their theatrics and declared that I had just won the family lottery and now got to go out by myself at least once per week so they could get used to it.  I'm pretty excited about the chance to go do something...though I'm going to have to scare up some friends to do it with!  (I don't want my nights out to be pathetic, ya'll!)  So now I'm going to make a list of all the new restaurants I want to try and all the new people I want to get to know better and have some fun! I may even...wait for it...go see a movie IN A THEATER!!  I know, I can't believe it either.  I think the last time I did that was a year ago to see Iron Man number whatever it was with the husband for his birthday and before that...the previous Iron Man movie.  At the very least I need to see something besides Iron Man on the big screen, right? (No disrespect to Robert Downey, Jr., whom I enjoy as much as the next girl!)

Let's get ready to party!!

Going to meet the Queen

Today the boys had a fun experience.  They got to head to the convention center and have their picture taken with Her Highness Sheikha Moza, the mother of the current Emir and the head of the Qatar Foundation.  The Qatar Foundation owns the husband's hospital and the children attend one of several primary and secondary schools also owned by QF.  Today, all 6000 students in these schools are heading to the newly built convention center to have their picture taken with Her Highness.

The boys have had funny reactions to this news.  J has been convinced she is going to ask him about his hair (everyone does!) and has been bursting with excitement since he found out they were going to see "the queen."  This morning he came running down the stairs yelling "Today we get to see the queen! Today we get to see the queen!" I'm a little concerned he will be too excited to listen to his teachers and very disappointed when it turns out he can hardly see Sheikha Moza through the throngs of students (all of whom will be wearing the same uniforms, by the way).  E, on the other hand, has been approaching the whole day with a very vocal sense of dread.  I think he is worried about going on the big buses they will take to get there, nervous about the mammoth convention center that we have seen only from the outside, and maybe even concerned about meeting a real live queen!

I can't wait to hear how it all goes.  I spoke to the boys' teachers, and they were equal parts nervous and resigned.  E's teacher said last year she was told to sit her three and four year old students on a line and then walk away.  She was incredulous and worried she would have some runners but thankfully they did stay seated.  I'm worried E will be the problem child who actually does run away this time, but his favorite friend is in class today, so that will help if they can just keep those two together.

UPDATE: They boys performed well but were disappointed not to see the Queen.  As I said, with 6000 students, the chances of being even near her were slim, but apparently the highlights of getting to ride in a bus "that looked just like an airplane inside!" and really great packed lunches (J even got two, one later for "tea" his teacher said) outweighed not getting to see her!

But look at what they missed!

these and even more images available at http://sheikhamozahfashion.tumblr.com

(I think they are all splendid, really, though my favorites are the purple and the black and white ombre gown.)