Robinson Family Story

Saying goodbye to my in-laws wasn’t too sad this time because we all felt that we saw each other for a long enough time - almost 6 weeks. Before we would go for two or three weeks and we’d always leave in tears because it just went by too fast. This time, everyone had their fill and everyone seemed tired and wanting to get back to their normal life, even though we had gotten used to seeing each other everyday and the kids made a big impact in the house.

I miss spending time with my husband’s two sisters. I miss putting the kids to sleep and then sitting outside on the patio and talking with them, a refreshing breeze coming upon us every now and then, our eyes fixated with the view of the valley and the lights of the houses across the valley spread out in front of us. Or we would sit inside, sipping herbal tea and watching TV. I happened to catch the movie ‘Mistress of Spices’ and it was really good. It’s about an Indian woman who opens a spice shop in NYC. Whatever problem you have she can give you the right herb or spice to help you. The info about the herbs and spices fascinated me and again i felt that feeling inside me that yearns to learn herbal medicine.

Speaking of herbs, i was giddy with excitement when they told me there was an herbalist who opened a store in Irbid, they call him the Al ‘3Attar. I happened to pass by the store on my way to another store so i decided to go in and see what they had. I told him about Ibrahim’s food allergies and he said the only thing is Black seed oil. He had some bottles of it from Germany, cold pressed without the use of chemical solvents, and it wasn’t expensive, 2 dinar which is $3, so i bought 4 bottles. It turned out to be organic too. He said i should give him a teaspoon in the morning and night. I asked him if i could put it on his skin instead of drinking it, because i know he won’t agree to drink it, and he said it was okay.

I also asked him if he had raw honey. He had two kinds, one for eating, one for medicinal use ‘3ilaji’, so i bought a large jar of the medicinal one for 20 dinar which is $30. I asked him if the bees were given sugar water or if the honey was heated or pasteurized or filtered. In order to show me the purity of the honey, he did this amazing demonstration for me that i had never seen or heard of in my entire life. He took a small bowl and put some water in it. Then with a flat wooden stick he took some honey and drizzled it into the bowl. The honey went to the bottom. They he started to swirl the bowl, which made the water swirl over the honey and asked me to continue to move the bowl in a circular direction. After about a minute an image appeared in the honey - the image of honeycombs!!! SubhanAllah!!! He said only real honey will do this. That will be an experiment i need to try with the honey i have at home.

In other news, the baby is walking! Finally, alhamdulillah. He took many steps in Jordan, but still used crawling to get around. My husband thought of this ingenious idea - to march in place while counting wahid, ithnaan (one two). Then he would start walking while singing a counting song. Then the baby tried to imitate his father and lift his feet one by one and follow his father around the house! He’s 15 months this week. He also is eating by himself with some or little success however :) He finally has an appetite for food, probably after trying the food in Jordan he realized that food tastes good. Over there he loved to eat olives, cheese, cucumbers, molokhia, za’atar, bread, mansaf, and their finely chopped salad. And let me tell you, he loves sweets this boy.

Ok the kids are getting bored so i need to go. More later.

Yesterday I went jilbab shopping in Irbid, the nearest big city from my husband’s village - about 15 minutes away. My husband wasn’t too happy about my long list of things i wanted to buy, but i explained to him that it’s much better to spend the money here where i can try things on and see it for myself than to waste it on things bought over the internet that turn out not to look good or fit good or the fabric gets wrinkled easily and ends up never being worn. It’s really hard to find modest clothes in the U.S. and with three kids i don’t have time to search all the stores and keep track of sales. So here i am in Jordan, which is a blessing alhamdulillah, and i have to buy my wardrobe for the next two or three years, Allahu A3lam only Allah knows when we will be back here again.

I left the kids with my in-laws and my husband’s sister and brother. The baby is so used to everyone now so i wasn’t worried about him, especially with his siblings and cousins around as well. I fed him and changed him and left him about an hour before his nap. They told me later that he played a bit, then took a two hour nap, and the played more until we came back, alhamdulillah.

Driving in Irbid reminds me of the ride into Boston. Ofcourse the cities look almost entirely different, but they both annoy me in the same way - the traffic! So many traffic lights, intersections, construction, crazy drivers, detours etc.

Anyways, i went into almost all the jilbab/abaya stores on one side of the main street. That’s one of the good things about shopping in Jordan - all the stores that sell the same thing are generally on the same street/same area. This saves a lot of time. They are small stores with clothes all around the perimeter in a U shape and one one side there is a counter, under and behind which is shelves of hijabs and accessories. At the back, there is one or two very small changing rooms. Many of the stores have a second floor with the less popular styles and the extra large and petite sizes and additional changing rooms.

My strategy is to look over the store and select the pieces i like. If i’m unsure of the sizes i’ll grab another size as well. Then i’ll try them all on and see what my husband’s sister thinks and how how i feel and decide whether i want it or not. Then i ask the lady to put it aside for me until my husband comes and i ask them for their card so i don’t forget the name of the store. I try to avoid shopping with my husband because he get really impatient and that’s to be expected, i am the same way when he is shopping for himself. So he went to the gym with his brother while i scoured the stores for 2 hours and then when he came we went back to the 3 stores i had found something in and we negotiated the price. Some of the items needed shortening so we had to come back in an hour to pick it up. In the meantime, we would head to the other stores to haggle the prices for the other items. I also like to get my jilbabs sewn shut from the waste down. The buttons are just not strong enough for a mom of small children. These alterations are done for free.

There is a new fabric for the jilbabs  - shiny satin - from Turkey. The Turkish jilbabs are in all the stores this year. As i tried one on, i couldn’t help feeling like i was wearing satin pajamas, that got a chuckle out of the store owner and my husband’s sister who came with me. But i managed to find a toned down satin jilbab in a dark purple color. I frequently felt annoyed while trying on the jilbabs and abayas. I would try a size on and it would be too small, then i would try to next size and it was too big.

Basically i’m aiming on a few nice jilbabs for the two Eids. Then i’m planning on buying a few of the pakistani style jilbabs for everyday wear. Jilbabs are just too weird for Americans and i feel like i’m scaring people off. But i still wear them in the company of Muslims as i feel more comfortable and modest in them. The pakistani style is just a shorter jilbab that comes to below the knees or the shins paired with the same material loose pants. This is more useful, and flexible for an on-the-go mom like me yet more normal looking to westerners. So far i only found one but it’s more for formal occasions. InshaAllah i will continue my search in the coming days. Else i’ll just buy some long skirts and long shirts, which i’m planning to get a few of anyways.

  I wish i could go shopping in Amman and find some abayas from the gulf area but i wouldn’t even know where to start and i know it would be more expensive. Let me give you an idea of the prices over here. I bought a jeans jilbab for 27 dinar which is $38 (after negotiating down from 36 dinar). I bought the Turkish Satin jilbab, fully lined from the inside, for 37 dinar which is $52 (after negotiating down from 40 dinar). I bought a long princess cut plain black skirt with lining for 20 dinar which is $28 - in this store they refused to negotiate the price. And from the same store, a long shirt for 22 dinar which is $31. And no, i wasn’t the one doing the negotiating, that was my husband and his brother and sister. The workers at the store will negotiate up to 10 dinars down if you know how to do it right. But more than that you would have to be buying a lot of pieces from them or talk to the owner. Generally, you’ll only be able to go down around 5 dinars. The manager will have more leeway in lowering price than the other workers.

Since we’re talking about Jilbabs, hijab, i just want to mention that i have gotten used to wearing the hijab all day. It has come to the point where i’ll be in my own room and i’ll forget to take it off. Yah, the weather is hot here from 11 - 4pm but i know i’ll be hot even if i was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. And so the days and weeks pass, too quickly. There’s only two weeks left as of today. I feel a bit sad, but i’ll be happy to be back in my own home and in my own bed.

Next i want to write about the food here. I feel like i’m eating real food. My father in law has built up a network of relationships with butchers, dairy farmers in the village, spice grinders, local vegetable farmers, local fruit farmers etc. Every morning he does the same routine - he gets milk fresh from the dairy farm down the street, fresh hot rugged pita bread from the bakery, and freshly made hummus and falafel from the village restaurant for our breakfast. More later inshaAllah.

We are just about getting over our jet-lag. There is a 7 hour time difference between here and Boston. All day i would just feel so tired. The kids naps and bedtimes and eating times were random each day. My husband worked for the first two weeks from here over his laptop, which i am currently writing from, and vonage phone line so he could attend his meetings by phone, this allowed us to be here for 5 1/2 weeks instead of 3 weeks. But i am grateful that tomorrow is his last day because it is hard getting the 3 kids ready for bed and putting them to sleep by myself each day. 

The kids are enjoying playing with their aunts and uncles and cousins here. We are staying at my in-laws house and on the second floor is my brother-in-law’s apartment and he has 1 girl and two boys that are around my kids’ ages. In the house, there are still 4 unmarried in the university age - 2 girls and 2 boys. So the kids have a lot of people around them to keep them occupied. But it has been challenging to limit the visits to the nearby convenient store (dukaan) with it’s constant temptation of chips, ice cream, chocolate, candy, and juice. It’s like a nightmare for me, but i have surrendered. Atleast they use sugar here instead of corn syrup. My 4 year old was asking me for ice cream morning noon and night! So now we are down to once a day. In Boston, i don’t buy ice cream to keep at home but once a week or two i would take them out for ice cream and they would split a small serving (those smalls are really big).

As for the homeschooling, in two weeks i have only finished one week of curriculum due to the jet lag and the fact that their cousins come home from school by 1pm. But now that things are settling down i am sure that i’ll be back on track inshaAllah. I have a lot of people around me to help with the baby so i can teach the kids which is a big help.

Last Saturday we spend the day in Amman. I only knew of it the night before so i didn’t get a chance to contact UmmZaid, but i thought of her as we drove down there. We went to the Royal Gardens where there is a new Children’s Museum. But first we prayed at the new Masjid next to the Museum. MashaAllah it is beautiful. The courtyard outside made me think of the one outside Masjid Al-Nabawi in Madinah. Then we ate lunch under a tree - we had brought with us a large pot of stuffed grape leaves and zucchini and tomatoes. The museum was the nicest i have ever seen. So much creativity and large scale projects. I was impressed. They have a section that’s outdoors too where they have mini versions of the seven wonders of the world, including Petra that’s in Jordan. I took pictures of the kids standing next to the Eiffel tower, Statue of liberty, and Egyptian pyramids etc. It was a lot of fun. But there were a lot of employees standing around watching every move you and your kids make. I can understand that they need to take care of all the exhibits and make sure no one does any damage, i’m sure it was very expensive. But i can’t help feeling uncomfortable being watched so closely. After that, we went to the C-town food court where i had chinese food - which i haven’t had in years. I resisted the urge to buy from McDonalds. I was proud of myself. Then we went to the new mall in Amman - it’s huge. Inside is Carrefour which is like walmart.

I have had the most delicious green plums, fresh green chick peas, figs, and mulberries (toot). The fruit here really has a flavor to it, not that watery flavor of the fruit you get in the US. Unfortunately i won’t be here to eat the pomegranites or grapes when they become ripe but atleast i made it for the figs and mulberries, which are my favorite.

We were hoping to go for Umrah while we were here but unfortunately it hasn’t worked out. Me and the kids have US passports and since we are not residents of Jordan, that makes us unable to apply for the Umrah visa from Jordan using our US passports. But i am sure it’s for the best, as only Allah knows.

Before i go, i just wanted to pass on this bit of useful info, for those of you who use homeopathic medicines or might in the future. When you travel with homeopathic medicines, you need to take them out your carry-on before you let it pass through the x-ray machines. Put them in a see-through ziploc bag or plastic case and give them to the attendant explaining that they are homeopathic. They will examine them by hand instead of through the machine. The reason is that the medicines are sensistive to the rays of the machine. It’s good that i happened upon this info while reading some random parts of the book “Raising a Vaccine Free Child” by Wendy Lydell that i ordered before i left.

As i go through my hijab wearing marathon for the next 3 1/2 weeks, i pray you enjoy your time and remain in good health. I will try to write whenever i find the time inshaAllah, but i cannot guarantee anything.

Randall Neustaedter OMD

Vaccine Choices Online

My lecture on Vaccine Choices for parents is now available online for your viewing pleasure. There is an audio recording, which should play automatically in whatever audio player your computer uses. There is also a PowerPoint presentation to view while the audio is running, You can easily scroll back and forth between slides. The presentation is one hour long, divided into two parts. Follow this link.

http://www.healthychild.com/childhood-vaccine-choices.html

The lecture covers:

· Making the choice, how parents can get the information to make a truly informed decision about vaccination.

· Discussion of childhood diseases, their incidence, and the likelihood of complications.

· Alternatives to the standard recommendation schedules.

· Evaluation of vaccine effectiveness and vaccine studies.

· Toxicity of the vaccines, their adverse effects, dangers, and long-term negative consequences.

· Legal requirements, including legal exemptions to vaccines.

Sorry i haven’t had a chance to write lately. Things are crazy around here. We’re all fine alhamdulillah just so much going on. Mainly the same stuff as i mentioned in a previous post - but add to that a whole week of my husband being away on a business trip, my mom sending me an 18 page paper at 9pm to edit, my sister coming back from a visit to Lebanon, another sister’s in-laws visiting, Mohamad’s circumcision stuff, a friend of mine that is really sick, people to invite and cake to order for my mom’s grad party, and it’s just way over my head.

Two and a half weeks to go before we leave for Jordan on May 22 inshaAllah. So i’ve been doubling Sumayyah’s Reading/Spelling/Writing/Arabic lessons so we can finish them before we leave. That way i only have to take Math/Qur’an/Asmaaul Husnaa/Ad’iyah with us to Jordan. We’ll be back June 29, so i’ll have July and August to get everything planned and ready for the next school year.

And i plan to do Science/Social Studies/Computer/Qur’an ‘fun summer school’ about 1 1/2 hours every morning just to keep the kids occupied with something during the summer. You know, when they get bored they destroy the house and drive me crazy. Those are the subjects that were optional (not tested) in the calvert curriculum first grade and i didn’t have time to do them during the school year because of all the additional subjects i have to teach (Qur’an, religion, arabic) so i decided to do them in the summer.

Well, i have to make dinner now. My to-do list for these next few weeks is really long.
In any case, i’m sure you gals are not online much these days, with all the nice weather and all. If not - go out and enjoy nature :)

Though it seemed that the worst was over, the surgery and recovery were successful, and we would soon be going home, the challenges I faced in these five days proved to be among the hardest. In part because we were all mentally and physically exhausted from going back and forth to the hospital for over a week, in part from the stress of dealing with doctors and nurses and the ups and downs of the baby’s recovery, and lastly because the kids were getting impatient and wanted to go home.

DAY 1
The new room was a refreshing change. It had a door that could be closed (the CICU is a set of open rooms), it’s own bathroom with a shower (in the CICU i had to walk all the way down and out of the section to get to the bathroom), and it was quiet!! I didn’t realize how much noise those machines in the CICU made and all the people talking and walking by and the monitors beeping and alarming so frequently for every little thing. I had thought that it was finally my turn to stay with the baby to teach him to eat but the nurses wanted to make sure he was okay with having food in his stomach before removing the feeding tube. So my husband stayed with the baby that first night and i went to my parent’s where my kids were staying. By this point, i was driving by myself, thank God i had a natural childbirth or else i wouldn’t have been able to drive. But i waited until i was one week postpartum to drive and it was okay.

DAY 2
The next morning i drove to the hospital and i had packed a bag so i could sleep over with the baby. The nurses were slowly lowering the amount of oxygen and increasing the amount of breastmilk Mohamad was getting and he was doing well. However, during the night they had tried three different times to draw blood from him and they were not able to. His veins were really small and it seems they sent normal nurses instead of more experienced nurses to draw the blood. My poor baby was being tortured! I can’t understand why they would do that to a baby in the middle of night? It broke my heart to hear of that and i resolved to stay the coming night with him. During the day, they came to try to get blood again but i insisted they bring the most expert nurse to do it and i insisted on coming with them to the ‘blood drawing room’ (they don’t want the kids to associate their beds with pain). You would think i was crazy to go but i felt that i needed to be with him to comfort him and recite verses from the Qur’an. So i made du’a and recited Qur’an and Ayatul Kursi and although he cried at first, suddenly he just stopped crying and closed his eyes and the nurse was able to get the blood she needed. By the end of the day, he was off the oxygen and was only left with the feeding tube. I tried to nurse him but the tube in his nose was getting in the way and i wasn’t successful.

That night, my husband went home for the first time to get a good night’s sleep and a change of clothes, though in hindsight it would have been much better if he had slept at my parent’s house with the kids. For the first time, i was sleeping in the hospital, and the kids were sleeping at my parents’ house without me. It turned out to be a poor decision. That night Mohamad kept waking up every hour and i was helpless. He didn’t know how to nurse, and i didn’t know that they weren’t giving him enough breastmilk in the feeding tube. Each time i would pick him up, try to nurse, fail, then rock him to sleep. Then i would put him back in the bed and try to get back to sleep on the pull out sleep sofa. A half hour later he would be crying again. I did this over and over until around 3 am i think when i finally called the nurse and told her what was happening and that i was exhausted. So they took him and later they told me he had been hungry and needed more milk. It turned out the machine was on a slow rate so his stomach was never getting full, poor thing.

DAY 3
Unknown to me, my 4 year old son Ibrahim was also waking up frequently at night crying for me. My mom became concerned because he didn’t seem to be breathing well and called me at 5 am. I told the nurse the situation and drove the 20 min to my parent’s house. I had plenty of breastmilk in the freezer so i wasn’t worried about leaving the baby. I also called my husband and he said he would soon leave to come to the hospital. There was something definitely wrong with Ibrahim. His chest was heaving and he was wheezing and coughing. I had never seen him like that before. He was exhausted and emotionally distraught that i hadn’t come from the hospital to put him to sleep that night. By then it was around 8am. I called his pediatrician and made an appointment to come in right away.

At the doctor’s office, i told the doctor about the situation. The doctor said Ibrahim was having an asthma attack. So he gave him several nebulizer treatments but he was still wheezing and his oxygen was still not ideal. So he said we need to continue his treatment at a hospital because they need the room and insisted we take an ambulance in case the medication wears off while i’m driving. There was another hospital closer by but i told them i wanted to go to Children’s Hospital where my newborn was. I mentioned to the doctor the irony of the situation: my newborn had just been taken off the oxygen and here was my 4 yr old needing oxygen! For the first time in my life, i rode in an ambulance. Ibrahim was so tired he fell asleep on the stretcher. I held his hand through the bumpy ride as the driver drove fast and frequently pressed the brake. At the hospital, he received more nebulizer treatments, took some medication, and then he was back to normal. When my husband arrived he took over with Ibrahim until he was done in the emergency room and i went back up to the baby, who had been sleeping most of the time i was gone. I tried to get some sleep during the day while the baby napped. That day they finally took out the feeding tube and my little Mohamad’s face was finally free of all tubes and i could feed him by bottle. I was so happy that it just about made up for all the struggles i went through that night and morning. His round face, big blue eyes, and dark hair could finally be analyzed - he was a cute mix of his brother and his sister.

That night, i took Ibrahim and slept at my parent’s house, leaving my husband in charge of the baby - diaper changing AND bottle feeding. He insisted he would be fine and that i should go rest and be with the kids. I joked to the nurse to help him out in case he forgot how to take care of a newborn. And to this day, one year later, he is still so attached to his father. Even this morning, the moment he heard his father’s voice he would not sit still with me. It’s no wonder, when his father was the one who was with him more than 70% of his first two weeks of life - everyday reciting Qur’an over him, talking to him, and massaging him in the short times he was awake. At my parent’s house, i continued to pump but now i also had to deal with Ibrahim who had to use his inhaler every 6 hours and take an oral medication every 12 for 3 days. He put up a fight for each one and it took a lot of convincing for him to keep the mask over his nose and mouth and take 6 breaths. Thank God he didn’t need to be hospitalized in that time.

DAY 4
Mohamad was doing well off the oxygen and feeding tube and his arrhythmia was under control and minimal. The doctors and nurses said he would most likely go home next day. So my husband and I decided that he should spend the day with the kids, so i brought them with me to the hospital along with my two brothers who were off from school (it was April vacation week, as is this week that i am writing this, one year later). I stayed in the car until my husband came and took them. He ended up taking them to the Aquarium and then taking them home to spend the night in their own beds. I also needed him to bring a few things from home, most importantly the car seat and frame stroller. Finally, the end was in sight.

That day, the lactation consultant came by to help me try to nurse the baby. It reminded me of when i had my first child and i couldn’t get her to latch on for 3 days. In that time the N-Shield by Medela really helped me. And it turned out i would need it again and the consultant suggested just that. Mohamad was used to eating from a bottle so he just couldn’t understand what he needed to do. It took him a few times to get it with the shield but i didn’t give up. I was confident that it was just a matter of time. The consultant remarked how calm i was throughout the session, and therefore how calm the baby was as we tried various positions with him. The nurses didn’t care how he ate, as long as he was eating. They would want to know how many minutes he nursed and how many ml from the bottle. They weighed the diapers too. So it wasn’t necessary that he learn to nurse in order to leave the hospital, so i didn’t rush it or stress it. I was just tiring to spend the time and energy to teach him and then having to go pump afterwards.

The nurse came in at one point and told me they need to take more blood to see how much of something was in his blood. I told her that the nurses have a hard time taking blood for him so i would rather only do it for extremely necessary things. She went and talked to the doctor and came back and told me it’s ok, they don’t really need that info. I was relieved. It is important to always have someone with the patient in the hospital to be their advocate because sometimes the nurses and doctors make mistakes or forget certain issues. So whenever they would come in to do something i would ask why and for what - just to make sure that it is absolutely necessary and spare my baby of further pain. He has gone through enough.

There was a scary moment that day - Mohamad woke up crying so i went and picked him up. The monitor started beeping - i looked up and saw his heart rate had went up and the rhythm was erratic - his arrhythmia came back. I tried to nurse him but he wouldn’t - he just gazed to the ceiling without a sound. Then the beeping stopped and his rhythm went back to normal and i nursed him. The nurse came in after a few minutes and took the print out from the computer. It was my first personal experience with his arrhythmia and i wasn’t sure if that’s just what happened. The nurse said it was, but she saw that he was fine now. It was really short - like 30 seconds, but my heart was pounding for what seemed like a million seconds after that. How could it be that i was the one that triggered his arrhythmia. Or perhaps it was his fear of being lifted up and down, being in mid-air? Every time i came to nurse him after that i would get nervous - maybe they won’t let him come home tomorrow if he keeps having episodes??

DAY 5
To be continued… Baby Mohamad comes home.

I’m working on a special post about Mohamad who is turning 1 on Monday!! It will be the second to last post in his series, then i will make a page titled TGA (transposition of the great arteries) and putting all the links for it there for others to benefit and find it easily inshaAllah.

Turn To Islam.com

Includes English subtitles.