It's the cold and COLDS season here in the sand pit, and for the first time, Little Princess got coughs as she turned eight months. Her bowels timing and frequency also changed slightly, and I was wondering if it is related to her teething. Her fifth pearly is breaking her gums currently. Except for the occasional coughing and mucus, there's nothing alarming so far. She is not extra cranky and she sleeps well through the night. And to prevent any chance for fever and diarrhea to set in, I rang the clinic yesterday for appointment today.

Customer Service: Any preferred doctor for Little Princess?
Me: Dr J.A. please.
Customer Service: Sorry but he's fully booked and you would be 16th on the waiting list. How about the other doctor? He's available from 10 am then 4-6pm
Me: Thank you but we'll just try our luck tomorrow with Dr. JA.

We were at the clinic 9am today but left and did not push our chance with Dr JA. We remembered to see Kalel's doctor six years ago in his new clinic and was lucky to see him, and here he is with our Princess.

Little Princess and Iranian doctor, Dr. Mohammadi. The Pediatrician who has loads of Kit Kats in his fridge for his little patients.

How many kids more on your board Doctor? Lots still, I know.

What's with pediatricians anyway?

Probably, there were around six doctors that Kalel had visited over the past six years here in Dubai, four of them because the two Favourite Doctors were not around. To say, we had no choice.

Little Princess meantime had three pediatricians on her first days, another two during her vaccinations.

I guess we had enough experiences with pediatricians to say that indeed, we learned to play preferences.

You see, our two favourite pediatricians stand out because:

- they are cheerful and socially child friendly, our kids get to smile back
- they treat kids personally, knowing the kids by name
- they cheer the kids by singing or mumbling 'I love you'-s
- they explain why the medications are as such
- they minimise prescribing antibiotics, until necessary
- they go beyond asking how the kids had been and what are other concerns apart from what we came for.
- they chat with Kalel, not rushing their time even with a waiting list of patients

I would like to put my feet on the shoes of our Favourite Pediatricians and know how it is to feel fulfilled in their profession. Would it be so great when your service is sought after and preferred by many?

It's Christ birthday tomorrow, and as my family's celebrating it, I took two days work leave. Gifts are wrapped and one more to grab and wrap today. What's special this Christmas for the family is having our Little Princess with us for her first time to greet Jesus a happy birthday. ♥

If there's a celebration for patriotism that I look forward to, that would be the UAE's National Day happening every 2nd of December. And if all flags hoisted during the event are to cover an area (as a % of total geographic size), UAE is sure to grab another Guinness for that. Expats and locals alike wave flags while establishments are like in a race to roll out the longest and widest flag. Towers flash a common hue for the day - that of green, white, black and red.

Summers in the UAE usually means discounted rates on hotels including prime properties as the Atlantis Hotel at The Palm. We were there last year and we loved it having made the most of what we paid for :-) from the number of activities we indulged ourselves in. Talk about value for money!

I've ran some blog posts on it on the following links:

In my Lens - At Atlantis The Palm
Lost Chambers

And had posted some pictures on the Gremliness facebook page:

Atlantis The Palm on Gremliness

And this year, I am crossing my fingers to bring my family there, this time with Little Riane, and this time -- for free! (That's if I get a chance on the competition prizes (^_^) Please Atlantis??? ).

You might want a chance too! Here's the link:

Atlantis - Treasure Hunt Competition

One thing that I so love about Dubai is the efficiency of processes in transacting with government services, that of course is in comparison with my experiences back home. In 30 minutes, I had received my sister-in-law's long term visit visa.

With the Eid holidays coming this weekend, I have received emails asking on directions of how to reach Hatta.

How many these days serve cake on their baby's monthsary? For some, it's finding a reason to indulge on those spongy chocolatey cakes :) Thank you Riane (< "_" >)

How loud would you laugh in joy if your daughter at five months and three days, stretch wide her arms pointing  to you, and cry as if pleading to be carried, and only stops when you take her in your arms?

Our Little Princess communicates her needs since birth, but this time, she does it with both her hands and arms.

If there is a challenging camera subject that I remain to fancy on, it would be the Dubai Fountain performances at night (outside Dubai Mall and by the foot of Burj Khalifa). You know that goal of achieving the perfect lighting to show the elegance around the lake plus capturing water jets in fine lines especially when the water jets curve or spiral out in a dancing stance? Oh well, if I remain to just point and shoot, the only way for me to produce a good photo is to bet on chance :)

Dubai Fountain show at the 30-acre Burj Khalifa Lake

Dubai Fountain show at the 30-acre Burj Khalifa Lake

The world's tallest building to date : Burj Khalifa

Having a baby from pregnancy to her first months, indeed slowed us down --  e.g. long drives are put off the shelf for a while, and career moves were moderated. But while diaper-changing and baby feeding can be kind of restricting, it freed me the time to do what I missed to do for a long while in my usually busy schedule– to reflect and assess myself and see what I had been missing to do.

I returned back to work at Riane’s third month. And that’s after a year since I popped the news I was pregnant; and that’s one whole year that our family had to slow down.

Coming out from my maternity schedule, I was eager to get back to my pre-pregnancy energetic self. But lo! I got myself wrong and realized I was not ready still. Firstly, I am having episodes of forgetting words and takes a while to remember things. Oh yes, it’s not a myth that pregnancy causes temporary memory loss. FYI – I had a normal delivery, I felt all the pain, was never put to sleep, and except for the delivery inducing drugs that went my veins an hour before Riane popped out, I don’t know any drugs that could have affected my brains! I got back to sitting with different people and if it’s a group, I would end up a listener since I had a hard time participating. When they talk of movies, I hardly recall the titles and casts. And I cant even remember that we watched Brave just two weeks back.

This frustrated me much, that I started looking at how I can get back on track. One quest led to another. I researched about gaining back my memory, but I realized that even if I have it back, I still struggle to chat with people who don’t speak my tongue. I struggle because for one, I had been avoiding to learn their tongue (language, culture and interests) due to fear of failing to blend in. And then I realized there’s a bigger underlying reason why I am this person–because I am probably an HSP, or a highly sensitive person. The write up I read about being HSP flatly listed most of my traits and confirmed the feedbacks on me. I worry at upsetting people, I easily feel hurt, I prefer quiet smaller groups, I am shy, I work in great detail, I am passionate, and after all these the article says “this means they are sometimes overlooked for promotions at work”.

I am not getting any younger, and I need to live out the unwanted effects of being an HSP. Moving on, I wanted to keep the advantages of being sensitive, and  outgrow its disadvantages starting with the following acts:

1)     More to physical social meetups - not just Facebook minutes
2)     Get out often with inspiring people who talks of travels, career achievements, excellent child rearing, investments
3)     Setup the family’s vision wall and get reminded how being sensitive could help or hinder our thoughts
4)     Work on a sense of feeling beautiful – i.e. learn and buy makeups and accessories (I look so boring, you know)
5)     Lessen saying “please”. I say it unnecessarily a lot, decreasing my confidence
6)     Set out to the outskirts more often, drive again and mark off some in our to-go list
7)     Leave gossip-mongers alone, theirs is not a positive sense of belonging-ness
8)     Watch more movies with Riane, Kalel and their Dad (Riane’s 2nd moviehouse trip: Bourne Legacy)
9)     Be more positively expressive, and tell people they are lovely when they take an extra step to be one

... and there's more to the list I could add as I focus getting forward.

Enhancing my confidence and the feeling the sense of beauty : my first ever  purchase of eye shadow and  foundation.

This Little Princess is on a heat endurance training at 3.5 months old. It's her first trip to Oman's mountains at 44 deg Celsius.

At Hatta Dam. My brother behind the camera and our friends in front.

Hatta Pools August 2012

Hatta Pools August 2012

The newspaper reported a few weeks back of a Dubai school that had to expel a four-year-old pupil after two days in class apparently because he was hyperactive. (Article here)

I feel bad for the kid and his parents, but I still take the side of the school if only to save the other 20 more or less other kids. You see, my son had a “special child” for a classmate for two years who would physically hurt him, tear his books, throw his notebooks, cut his pencils, then laughs while my son cries. Special Classmate takes gladness at my son's cries. I’d say it’s not bullying because Special Classmate doesn’t seem to understand his acts. Apart from my son, he does the same to the other kids. At a point when of the disgruntled kids slammed his head to the wall. On the second year, the impact was taking a toll on our son. In response to bullying, he started changing from a rather sweet, quiet child in school to a noisy and defensive one. He shouts back at bullies with “I’ll Manny Pacquaio you!”.

We complained to the teacher but only to be told that it’s not within her control to deny the dear special classmate. That the child’s mother pleaded with tears to the school’s administrators to accept their son as the other mainstream schools already declined him. Out of compassion he was accepted.

Let’s just look at it this way: children has the right to education and we parents have the responsibility to make sure our kids can jibe socially. We don’t want our kids to put other kids at risk or be disadvantaged much as we pull our kids away from misbehaving kids. But for the really special children, I just wish more affordable facilities become available for them.

I was wrong when I thought it would take me awhile to again step in the movie house until our Little Princess at least grows bigger. Today, while we needed to wait four hours for our car's tinting, we trooped Mirdiff City Center's Vox Cinema to use time, after all it's not sale season and there's my I-do-not-care-when-shops-are-at-full-prices attitude.

Batman's The Dark Knight Rises is currently showing but Kuya Superman opted for Brave. It is the story of Princess Merida, who was determined to make her own path in life and defies a custom that brought chaos to her kingdom. She was granted a wish which turned out to be a curse. She used her bravery to undo this beastly curse. I found cute listening at the Scottish accents of the characters. Having Scots for colleagues made me so accustomed to their speech, and if there's a European accent I could readily identify is it's theirs.

Princess Merida and her triplet brothers

Our Little Princess at two weeks before turning four months old, behaved well and watched along with us, cooing once in  a while. She started getting cranky (just wiggly) towards the end of the movie, so their Dad ascended with her upstairs near the exit to put her to sleep.

Little Princess already sleeping as we left the cinema, oh well, it's 10:30pm by now.

Our first car - Forky the Fortuner will be five years old in a few days, but we sold her last month (2012.07.25) to Basheer who was so eager to have her.

Selling a car in the Dubai could be easy. One got to be sure of the intention before he can regret on  letting go of the dear steering wheel so quickly. Here's how we went about:

First, we estimated a fair value for our car, a price we'd not go lower to. For a car bought five years ago at AED 84k, clocked 103k kms, Toyota maintained with service contract until 125k kms, and tires changed at 75k kms, we thought selling it for AED 40k is fair. Then, we posted an ad on Dubizzle, tagged a price of AED 57k. The high price was based on prices of similar specs sold online, and to give a haggling space, that feeling when buyers would be happy if they get a good cut.

For a more technical pricing, we visited Al Futtaim Auto Mall. Selling it back to them is effort efficient in terms of ownership transfers but they quote the lowest value you could have for your car. They checked the car, including paints and brakes, and reviewed the service center history. Forky was offered an initial rate of AED 42k. We told them we had an interested buyer for AED 48k, so the staff said they could arrange a higher price if we are decided on selling it to them. The next day, they phoned and requested us to bring the car to the showroom but by then, we had another willing buyer through our Dubizzle ad for AED 50k.

Dubizzle is so effective, we had to remove our advertisement as calls kept coming in. Basheer was the highest price willing buyer, and the deal was sealed on the parking lot. On his side, he requested a car pass certificate (that RTA check as a requirement for registration) which we obliged. Basheer as the buyer next secured a car insurance, already in his name. Ownership transfer now ready, Basheer paid in cash, then both buyer and seller went to RTA at Jaffliya Emarat Petrol Station to register the car in Basheer's name. My husband, the seller, removed the Salik tag from the car, and Basheer puts a new one on. Salik tags are on personal accounts, hence the need for the buyer to get a new one. The period for the annual car insurance we paid had not yet lapsed, allowing us a refund on the un-used portion after we provided the insurance company of the new registration for the car.

Selling your car in Dubai, in our opinion is something of being an honest seller and finding a trusted buyer. Otherwise, it's just like selling cupcakes.

There's this reference to kids  as "Terrible 2" when they reach their second year. But for us it's not the case it seems. Can I say it's "Terrible 5" for the Gremlin? Nope, he's not that bad, it was just how we all confronted his social exposure.

Kalel at five years old is primarily being in Grade 1, with his Mom expecting a baby and his Dad working away from home. At this time, school does not have a nanny, and each one is to forced to outgrow the "baby" tag that may have been left of  from Kindergarten 2. And he is forced to cope with a demanding school curriculum (marathon lessons including Math with multiplication, division, fractions, areas). And his pregnant Mom is quite mean, hot tempered and impatient sending him to school and assisting in his school work at those five months his dad is working away from home.

And then he has to deal with school bullies. And he started to socialize, chat and play with classmates at times adopting nasty attitudes he has to be corrected and reprimanded for.

Then came the unimpressive school performance. He took school lightly but school requires him to know reading and cope up with an advanced curriculum. It has been stressful hearing feed-backs from his teacher; I wrote notes and notes to her asking her attention to the Gremlin. The Gremlin then was made to sit in front of the teacher (but near to a special classmate who would make him cry). Then we resorted to a tutor who amazingly triggered the Gremlin to blurt out and read by himself. Another issue with him was his focus. Everything just seem to be play. To get him to focus meant stressful daily

School  

Hello there, please meet another bundle of joy in our family, our Little Princess,  born on 27th April 2012. 

Finally after nine months and after a two-hour intensely painful induced labour with my Husband at my side, our little princess is out at last, and it was so magnificent  hear her cry immediately soon as she emerged out of my womb and before she was placed on my belly. Her first cry brought cheers to everyone in the delivery room, especially to me, saying we both made it well. The sound of her cry was just amazing, so innocently demanding for comfort and warmth, I felt our connection instantly that first second.

We named her from an Irish word that means 'a great queen', and a second name that is in honour to her Igorot maternal great grandmother's  righteousness. 

A drive to Jebel Hafeet in Al Ain won't be complete without stopping by Green Mubazzarah Park by the mountain's foot. When coming from a long drive like Dubai, Green Mubazzarah could serve as a 're-energizing' station before or after ascending Jebel Hafeet or a walk around the zoo. This is where we usually eat our packed lunches because going back to the Town Center where the food chains are may take considerable time.

For some, the park's main attraction is its naturally heated spring water where visitors dip their feet. The transformation of the once rocky place into a greenery with visitor facilities is quite admirable.

Shameful it may be but I'll share it anyway for those who might search it and see it helpful.

In one of my posts I mentioned about our traffic violation of jumping on red light along the Emirate of Ajman. Jumping on red light is included in the red list and as such, it carries AED 800 fine, 8 blackpoints and two weeks of car impounding. And because of the impounding clause, violators are not allowed to pay online. So  being based in Dubai, we need to drive to Ajman to settle.  

But do you know that impounding penalty can be paid at AED 100 a day? (This is as of today though, please still check for any change in rules)

Had we known this earlier, we could have paid the fine in February when Ajman Police provided discount on traffic fines, at a time we thought we needed the car more and scheduled the impounding for later.  So today, Husband paid AED 800 plus AED 1400. 

Next time we pass through Ajman from Um Al Quwain/ Ras Al Khaimah through E11, we know to be more conscious of the following:
(1) We are not too familiar with the road, hence on calculated speed
(2) While a major highway, and a clear straight road coming from Um Al Quwain with a tempting speed limit of 120kph at some point, slow down as soon as Ajman is reached as traffic lights line the road.
(3) When used to Dubai's traffic lights of dual slow-down warning (blinking green lights then yellow), the counterpart to Ajman's traffic lights is at green lights at around number 10 counting down. Remember, after 1 is total stop, no additional warning time.

Husband grinned and declined Ajman's Mr. Police's remark of "Please come again", so we might as well stand for it :-)

No, it's not dawn or sunset here, it's midday, but the sandstorm had covered the sun. I am not too sure but since I started in Dubai, I was made to believe and continues to believe that sandstorms mark a change in weather, so either way would bring a frown or a smile. 


Below photos were taken in February this year that made me sigh, marking the start of summer. It's uncomfortably hot now outdoors, and I look forward to the next sandstorm that will sign in winter.

Sandstorm on Al Ittihad Road heading to Sharjah

Being the under AED 100/ person buffet patrons, we found Filipino fare alternative for our Sumo Sushi Friday buffets -- at Lamesa restaurant at Asiana Hotel along Siddique Road in Deira. (Speaking of buffets, Thai Chi at Wafi is on AED 120 for two adults but on weekday lunches only. Kalel was free of charge. Please phone them to confirm if promotion is still valid.)


Friends frequent Lamesa for Karaoke nights and comedy shows, but I guess my family would settle for their brunches for the time being.

     --  Friday and Saturday Filipino brunches costs AED 69 an adult and AED 34 a child
     --  Above brunch includes unlimited water, iced tea and coffee and tea
     --  Buffet table includes a few sushi and a few Korean dishes
     --  Prior reservation is highly advised. Call +971 4 238 7777
     --  Venue carries a no-slippers policy
     --  Weekend buffets start at 11 a.m.
     --  Asiana Hotel is located between Reef Mall and Muraggabat Police Station
     --  Check other details from the website here

Many Kabayans hold their weekend celebrations here filling the venue so the need for reservations. Today alone there were four big groups almost occupying all of the restaurant. Someone hosting a baby shower even had a small round table in front with their tokens and cake on it.

Not as 'appetizingly' prepared, but better than nothing

Who said a sleeping Girl in a carrier can stop me from fixing my waffles?

June 19, 2012

I posted this on Facebook today:

Kalel turns six today and definitely no longer the big baby. From a shy bullied school boy, to a chatty bully’s friend with a starting bullying attitude -- may he not become the bully as he starts Grade 2… He’s passionate of airplanes, youtube, google maps and said he can play by himself -- may he learn team play... He approaches kids in the malls, chatting and asking for their contact numbers – may he be charmingly friendly rather than irritating... That’s a hope list for him, but I guess he’d say “I hope mama and papa have lots of patience and wisdom in dealing with me”. 

Happy birthday Kalel (with hugs & kiss)! 

And here's a recap of how we celebrated your birthday:

On birthdays you attended, you had been inviting everyone to come on your birthday (without agreeing with us yet), so when we started planning your celebration, we had to discuss with your our budget. You were given a choice: first choice --  we invite your classmates, some friends and most uncles and aunties (and there's plenty of them) and you will not have a gift of your liking from us; or second choice -- we invite some aunties and uncles for dinner and buy you few gifts you want. You chose the second, you even said you're sure as you can celebrate by yourself (not that we wanted you to celebrate less, son :) ). So here it was:

2012.June.17 was a UAE holiday, we had your pre-birthday dinner at DFC's Hardrock Cafe. Juryn  joined you blow your birthday candles.

Do you remember doing this, your usual approach-someone-a-stranger-and-ask-their-number thing? Miss Nice Lady  entertained your question as you wrote her answers.

You went to Kidzania for a good four hours, became a pilot, an aircraft engineer, doctor, dentist, made your own coke and milk pack, delivered newspapers, among others. You came home for late lunch with your third birthday cake. Your first two cakes were at Hardrock CAfe. And we had another family picture. On your sixth birthday, our dear Baby Riane completes us.  Then you went on to open your gifts. There is one of your requests -- an Emirates Airbus A380-800 model. Were you too happy to have one of the new passenger aircraft model on your radar. Another happy face with one of your favorite and skilled-at games - Angry Birds. Happy birthday dear Gremlin,  may you continue to grow in wisdom and goodness. We love you!