We Love You, Baba

Father's Day is celebrated in Scandinavia on the second Sunday of November which was this previous Sunday. Happy Father's day to my own father and to my amazing husband who gets to enjoy two Father's Days a year! But he deserves it! I want to dedicate this post to my dear husband and the father of my children.

Dear baba/isi,

On this Father's Day we want to thank you for everything you've done for us. You are the world's best dad! 

Thank you for being there for us from the moment you heard we were just a tiny little peanut growing in mommy's belly. Thank you for helping mommy during her pregnancy and especially for taking natural childbirth classes with her and becoming a certified labor coach to help us come to this world. We are very proud of you. Thank you for being there when we first opened our eyes and saw you and mommy for the first time. Thank you for protecting us from all the unnecessary interventions at the hospital and for giving us a peaceful and safe journey and first few days into this world.

Thank you daddy for all the times you rocked us to sleep in your arms, even though you were so tired yourself. Thank you for all the hours you spent walking around trying to help us sleep and for the lullabies you sang to us. Thank you for reciting Quran over us when we were sick or tired and easing our discoforts. Your voice is like magic to us. Thank you for letting mommy sleep in on weekend mornings and for the special times we spent together playing.

 Thank you baba for making me breakfast every morning and taking me to daycare. Thank you for all the fun times we spent at the park, sliding, climbing and exploring the places. Thank you for reading me a bedtime story every night, it is the best moment of the day when I get to lay my head on your shoulder and sleep. I will always remember those precious moments with my daddy. I love you baba you are my habibi.

 Thank you baba for never ever loosing your temper with us and always having so much patience with us even if we were driving you up the walls.

 Thank you isi for learning some Finnish language and for understanding how important our other roots and culture are. The best memories from summer are from our other home country with you at the summer house, thank you for taking us every year.

Thank you for all the kisses and hugs and love and affection you shower us with. They mean more than any gifts to us and make us the happiest and luckiest children in the world. When we are older we will take care of you. We love you always, daddy.


Love,
your habibis

Crossing The Line

I've said it before I will say it again. Most Saudis don't know what a queue, also known as a line is.
Other foreign concepts include (but are not limited to):
Standing in a line.
Queuing.
Waiting for your turn.
First come, first served.

Just in case someone might not know what the last phrase means here is what Wikipedia tells us:  "first-come, first-served and first-come, first choice – is a service policy whereby the requests of customers or clients are attended to in the order that they arrived, without other biases or preferences. The policy can be employed when processing sales orders, in determining restaurant seating, on a taxi stand, etc. In Western society, it is the standard policy for the processing of most queues in which people wait for a service or two.

Why doesn't this concept apply to Saudi-Arabia? Why am I constantly being cut in line by a "VIP" who thinks their existence is more important than others? Why are people in such a hurry to be served first? Why are people so indifferent to others in their presence? What causes this rude behavior? Why is it acceptable to act this way?

Just an example from yesterday.
I was shopping at the IKEA food market and had picked a few must-have items (such as Finnish black licorice, rye crackers, gingerbread and frozen crawfish) and had proceeded to the cashier with my basket. There was one woman standing there so I automatically went to stand behind her, to form a line.

So next thing you know another woman comes from the side and shoves her chocolate bars on the counter and the cashier automatically serves her. I was annoyed but thought this is normal here so I didn't bother to say anything. Then another woman comes from the other side of the counter and starts waving her money and candy at the cashier. He sees me, but takes her first.

My annoyance is growing. Next I push my basket in front of the cashier and say, excuse me, I'm next. No use. He takes the chocolate bars from the insisting man next to me. A boy comes from the behind him and pushes a licorice bar almost directly in the cashiers hand. All the while I'm standing there with my basket and telling him I've been waiting for 10 minutes here. He completely ignores me and proceeds to serve the Saudis as if he didn't understand anything I just said.

I have the baby in a stroller behind me and she is getting really fussy and my husband is still busy with something else. By now six people have jumped the queue so now I was determined to get served next. Then what completely topped off my irritation was when a girl and her mother came next to me demanding to be served immediately, of course. The girl was waving a chocolate bar. I told her mother excuse me there's a line here, I was first. She ignored me. Then the girl tried again and I pushed my basket in front of her so that she couldn't even reach the cashier. And guess what the mother does?

She whispers something in the daughter's (age around 7 yrs old) ear and next thing you know the kid shows up next to the cashier with her chocolate bar. I glanced at him with a look that could kill but regardless he took the chocolate bar and the girl and mother started giggling in a juvenile manner. That is parenting at its best for you. What an exemplary woman. I'm sure the girl will grow up to be just as rude, selfish and immature as her.

The cashier then finally took my basket, dumped all the stuff out on the counter and started throwing (no joke) THROWING it around. I asked him what are you doing the cookies are fragile they might break! He looked at me with a blank stare. Then I asked him why didn't you take my things before, I was waiting a long time. He said, because you have so many things.

REALLY? You have got to be freakin kidding me. So the more things I have purchased the longer I have to wait in line for? Everybody with less items is allowed to cut me in line? What if I purchase two items at a time and then make a new purchase every time? If a hundred people come with one item, I will have to wait with my 15 items until you finish them? He obviously had never heard of customer service or first comes first served principle. Just because I chose to buy more doesn't mean I loose my right to be served when it's my turn. Sheesh. Who will teach these people manners?? Who will instill customer service into their brains?

What would you have done in this situation? Had a nervous breakdown, called the manager, grabbed the chocolate bars from the other customers hands and thrown them around or just walked away and not bought anything?

For more pics from the Saudi IKEA experience go here: http://imagesofsaudi.blogspot.com/2012/02/saudi-ikea-experience.html
Saudi VIP's: http://blueabaya.blogspot.com/2010/08/excuse-me-excuse-me-excuse-me.html

Lessons Learned on the Saudi Roads

Let me tell you a story and a valuable learning experience from our Saudi Road trip.

So we were cruising on the highway in the rented SUV somewhere between Kharj and Wadi Al-Dawasir surrounded by literally NOTHING else than rocks. The scenery out there is just flat. Not even the random camels you often see roaming in the desert could be seen, let alone a twig. Just flatness. And rocks.

This sign indicates there would in fact be camels around but I think they just put it there for looks.

This was the most interesting scenery and the only pic I took for about 500km.

So back to the story, I was sitting in the backseat next to the baby who was playing with her toys in her car seat (or so I thought). I was pumping milk and had the lights off because in case some over enthusiastic idiot drove too close and got all excited from a glimpse of that glamorous sight (let me tell you there is nothing glamorous or exciting about pumping milk, but with Saudi guys, you never know). So in order to save time I figured I could just pump the milk and give it to her in a bottle instead of having to make another stop.

My mom and husband were listening to some weird radio program that sounded like it was being broadcast from outer space. It was the only channel available in English out there. I think it was the news but I could be wrong because like I said it sounded like it was coming from light years away. But anyways they had the volume so high I could not even hear the breast pump make the yatouhuuyatouhuuyatouhuu -sound.

Suddenly I realized the baby was making a gagging sound. Ok I was not so alarmed at first because my baby has some sort of obsession of sticking fingers in her mouth so far that it makes her gag. And she thinks it's funny! This baby does not have a sense of humor! I mean who does that anyways? And please don't tell me there's something called baby-bulimia because there's not. It's just her thing ok.

So I told her to stop (as if it helps) but it just got worse. I flipped the light on and saw she was really gagging on something this time. From this point on the story becomes a bit blurry in my mind.

I shouted to my husband to stop the car because the baby was choking and he braked so hard the car almost flipped. We stopped on the side of the highway where maniacs are speeding by at 200km/h. My husband and mom ran out of the car to her side and took her out of the car seat. Did I mention I was still attached to the breast pump? Oh and that mom was not wearing her abaya.

It was so dark they couldn't see clearly if there was anything in her mouth. I had taught my husband basic CPR skills in cases of emergency and stressed the importance of the "no blind sweeping" rule. I was so proud that he remembered it when he was forbidding mom from doing it! I saw the baby become increasingly red from gagging from her face at this point. Which could be seen as a good sign because at least there's still oxygen in her system.

The only thing I could think of was to get to her. So I just threw the bottles on the floor and got out of the car with my ta-tas peeking out of the abaya (which I only realized later).

I took the baby and automatically started doing what I had been practicing many times with a dummy in Life Support classes. Somehow time stopped and things slowed down like in the Matrix movies except that thankfully I didn't have to dodge any bullets. I was thinking to myself this is not happening. I am not going to let her choke here, in the middle of the desert! There is no time for an ambulance or even helicopter to reach us(and where the hell are we anyways, next to rock number 76,945,412?) I was determined to get the thing out of her.

Looking back I cannot believe how calm I was. I kept hitting her in the back to hope something would fly out but without avail. The baby was starting to get limp and blue and stopped gagging. So I decided to look once more in her mouth by shining the iPhone light in there. And lo and behold there it was. A piece of clear plastic stuck down her throat.

I managed to get it out and THANK GOD she started breathing normally again. The sneaky little bugger had reached out to a small plastic wrapper and started chewing on it. Despite the 100 toys I had given her to play with in the car seat. I mean who does that?

So what lessons can we learn from this story?
-Learn basic life support skills, and teach your partner and other family members too.
-While pumping breast milk in car in Saudi-Arabia, remember to close your abaya when finishing and getting out of the car
-That said don't pump milk in a car in Saudi-Arabia.
-Or rent a car with tinted back windows
-Always keep your iPhone charged
-Babies like to chew on plastic bags
-Babies like to play with anything ELSE than their own toys
-Always keep your baby in a car seat

-The scenery between Kharj and Wadi-Al-Dawasir is most likely the most BORING you will ever see.
-Saudi radio stations suck

Learn CPR:
http://globalcrisis.info/cpr.html#baby
Why you shouldn't blindly stick your fingers in your babies mouth:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1342520/pdf/jaccidem00006-0058.pdf

Children Are Treasures Not Airbags!

Dear parents in Saudi-Arabia,

I've noticed that many of you don't care too much about the safety of your children in the cars.

I have always wondered how you can have this nonchalant attitude whilst driving among the most insane, irresponsible, reckless maniacs drivers in the world?

You love and cherish your children so dearly, yet you place them under such danger by not securing them in seat belts and car seats!
Don't you wish to keep them safe in the crazy traffic of Saudi-Arabia? Did you know that Saudi Arabia's roads are the world's most dangerous ones? A person is killed on them every 90 minutes. A fifth of them are children under 12 years old.
The next one could be your child. Think about it.

Would you let your child run around on a highway, or play in a busy parking lot? I didn't think so.
So why do you let your child jump around in your speeding car? Don't you think its dangerous to let him hang out of the windows? How about having him sit between yourself and the steering wheel? Some people make fun of your careless attitude and say you are using your baby as an Airbag.

Fathers, do you think because you are such great drivers nothing will ever happen to you? Think again.
Do you realize how many children are out there actually driving the cars?

Have you thought about how many road hooligans there are in the streets chasing women and causing accidents?
There is nothing your excellent driving skills can do to prevent accidents caused by other peoples reckless driving habits.

You might think you don't need a car seat or seat belts because Allah will protect your family. It's time to re-think this.
Children are treasures given to you by the grace of God. He has put them under your care. It is your responsibility to protect your child from any harm that you possibly can. God trusts you, are you worth His trust? Parents will be held accountable for this trust on the Day of Judgement.

You wouldn't let your child go in a lions cage at the zoo and just think Allah will protect your child. That would be careless and irresponsible. Just like having your child in your lap while driving. Or allowing her to stand out of the sunroof while speeding on the highway. Equally irresponsible and dumb as placing your child in that cage. Think about it.

In case of an accident, your precious infant will fly out of your lap like a football, no matter how hard you hold on to him. It's proven to be impossible to hold on to a child in case of collision.

Did you know that car seats and seat belts save lives? According to various studies they can cut the risk of infant fatalities by up to 80%.  The tools to help parents protect their child the best way possible are out there. Fulfill your parental responsibility and secure your child into them!

You probably heard the Hadith about the Bedouin that left his camel untied. The Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) said to him: "Be wise [first] and tie your camel, then trust in Allah."

Wouldn't this same golden advice also apply to the most valuable of possessions, your child?

Be wise and tie up your baby in a car seat! 

The rest is up to Allah.

Tips on what kind of car seat to get, instructions how to use them and statistics on child car safety:
http://www.carseatsite.com/FAQ.htm
http://www.safekids.org/safety-basics/babies/on-the-way/carseat-safety-for-babies.html
http://autocollisionsspecialist.homestead.com/untitled2.html
http://www.cdc.gov/features/passengersafety/


This video clip should be watched by all parents:

Culture Fair for Children in Riyadh

Something very interesting currently going on in Riyadh is the first International Children Culture Fair at the King Fahad cultural center. For more info check the Blue Abaya events section!

I went to the fair with my friend Aisha Al-Hajjar who was asked to cover it for Arab News, she writes columns for Saudi Life and has her own blog Saudi Birth Story too. I was honored to be asked by her to cover for the photos for the Arab News article.

Coming from an extremely strong culture of reading, (we grew up reading books, not watching TV) the fair was a very positive surprise for me. There was so many children's books for sale ranging from toddlers touch and learn type books to older kids bedtime stories. The fair had many books in English as well and some English learning centers were represented along with a few embassies such as Sweden and Japan.

My husband bought some books for our baby because she is already such a little bookworm! These were her first Arabic language books. I started reading to her when she was a few weeks old in Finnish and now whenever she sees a book she tries to grab it so it is definitely paying off already.

Reading to children is not as common in Saudi-Arabia than it is in Finland, but it seems to be growing in popularity. Reading to your kids is always highly beneficial for their language skills and strengthens the bond between the child and parent.

A nice bedtime story will help the child relaz and wind down before falling asleep and even look forward to going to bed. I hope many parents get the inspiration and encouragement of reading to their kids from this fair.

The fair had many other aspects to it on top of the book fair there was a museum, plays and shows and interactive learning center. I would recommend all parents Saudis and expats alike visit this fair with their children!

The King Fahad cultural center has very modern architecture and pleasant surroundings with fountains and gardens.

Children being interviewed for television.

Can you guess the sponsor of this event?

I was surprised how all the classic fairy tales that we know from childhood could be found at the fair and had passed the Saudi censors. There was some excellent books on Islam in English language for children available too.

Cute little boy hugging his book!

Fun interactive books for toddlers

There were lot of booths to browse various kinds of children's books. Most were in Arabic language but they did have English books too.

This book was about the history of Saudi-Arabia

These young Saudi men were dressed in traditional outfits and were performing traditional dancing at the fair.

Saudi hand puppets!

A happy kid enjoys the fair with his father

Face paintings were a hit!

You can have your name written in Japanese at the Japanese embassy booth!

Pretty Saudi girls dressed in traditional dresses with flower bands on their hair.

A girl being interviewed by media.

More hand puppets.

More toddler books! Was hard to choose which ones to get for my daughter.

Monkey manners is a marvelous way to teach kids basic manners ;) 

 Fountains outside the center.

 Such a pretty girl and pretty dress!

A marvelous book for expecting mothers with children and curious questions to answer how the baby got there!

The architecture inside the King Fahad cultural center is impressive!

Saudi-Arabia Suffers from ADHD

According to an Arab news article Saudis "suffer" from a high rate of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, also know as ADHD. The rate in Saudi was found to be an alarming 15% (globally 3-5%).
ADHD is typically 4 times more common in boys than it is in girls. An estimated 50% of the children diagnosed with ADHD continue to have symptoms in adulthood. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002518/


The exact cause of the disorder is still unknown. The etiology of ADHD is a combination of multiple genetic and environmental factors such as: genes (estimated 70-80% of cases), food additives and preservatives, excess sugar, watching too much TV, discordant family relationships, mother's cigarette smoking and alcohol abuse during pregancy, infections in childhood and formula-feeding of infants. .http://www.jpands.org/vol8no2/ottoboni.pdf

The high prevalence of ADHD in Saudi-Arabia does not surprise me one bit.
In fact I think it's more of a miracle the rate is not even higher considering the circumstances children are brought up in the Kingdom.


In some places it could even be assumed the ADHD prevalence in Saudi is somewhere around 90%.
Just entering any malls children's entertainment area at midnight and a typical scene is revealed:


A Saudi kid is frantically running around in the almost deafening noise of the fully-packed amusement area. He goes from one place to another screaming from the top of his lungs holding onto a bag of chips on one hand and an energy drink in the other. His maid has told him already 10 times they must leave but he does not seem to have heard anything. She is chasing after him while trying to feed  formula to a crying baby in her arms. The kid races over to the next machine pushing over three other kids with Bebsi-colas in their hands because he could not wait for his turn. They start hitting each other and calling each other donkies while the Bebsies go flying on the floor. No ones says a thing. The father comes to pat the kid on the shoulder offering an ice cream.

It's not the kids fault that he became this hyperactive- out-of control- junk-food eating-high on sugar- monster. It's the parents, the environment and the society. Saudi culture has a very relaxed outlook on child upbringing. In general the child will be allowed to do most things that in the west people might see as irresponsible or might even report as child abuse. The children are not usually given strict boundaries or rules but rather left to explore and find out for themselves. High activity levels, displays of superiority and pompousness, loudness and aggression in boys are perceived as desirable traits rather than problems in the Saudi culture.
Many cases of ADHD will go undiagnosed or their conditions will get worse due to this attitude.


Factors in Saudi society that contribute to or exacerbate the exceptionally high rate of ADHD:

• inbreeding and genes (most marriages are between cousins)
• consuming foods containing high amounts of additives and preservatives 
• diet rich in sugars
• children consuming energy drinks and cola drinks
• lack of sleep at NIGHT
• having maids (absence of parents)
• lack of discipline
• high prevalence of formula-fed babies
• large family sizes

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19302773

http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/pdf/CG72FullGuideline.pdf

http://www.cspinet.org/new/adhd_bklt.pdf

Back to the article, it raises the importance of early treatment of the condition for better prognosis. Early diagnosis and treatment of ADHD is crucial for the affected person to be able to lead a normal and successful life.

However this news article tells us that there are currently only approximately 40 specialist doctors in the Kingdom for the treatment of the one MILLION Saudi ADHD patients. 

In the article, Prince Saud bin Abdullah "urged all sections of society *pay attention* to this problem and understand how to deal with it adequately".

He did not disclose how that would happen though.

What would you suggest, how to help solve this problem?

Support group for ADHD in Saudi:http://www.adhd.org.sa/en/

Facebook support group:http://www.facebook.com/pages/ADHD-Support-Group-Saudi-Arabia/118757624872903