Sweet Things

Sakura & Natsuki's room

2010-10-04T09:57:00.000+09:00

Two years ago I posted about my ideas for redecorating Sakura and Natsuki's room. Earlier last year I took the wallpaper off, fixed the dents and holes and painted the walls. I chose a soft yellow to go with all of the things I bought at Ikea. When my mom came to visit last June we made curtains together and chose the last details to go in the room. Just like when we put together Emi and Misaki's room, we took the girls to a friend's house and while they were gone we put everything together. Sakura and Natsuki were so excited when they came home. They love every part of the room and they've spent a lot of time playing up there. But I realized that I never posted pictures of the finished product. Enjoy!

For the window behind the bed I covered a large piece of styrofoam with the same material as the curtains for the other window. Our bedrooms are on the third floor and I had a vision of the girls fooling around near an open window, falling through the screen and sliding down in the 2 ft space between our house and our neighbor's house. It freaked me out so I did this in both of the rooms!

They love to organize their princess shoes like this!

The boxes hold all of their toys. The bottom two are full of dolls!

I think I've only bought two stuffed animals since Emi was born but as you can see there are enough to fill a whole basket! Where do they come from?

These wall lamps are so adorable.

It's hard to get a good picture of the whole room but I think you can get an idea of what the room looks like. Last week I finally put up the rack for their bags but for some reason I've been hesitant to put up the rest of the things I bought to go on the walls. Maybe because I worked to hard to fix the walls, I don't to "wreck" them again. But mostly I'm not sure I still like what I bought. I was able to get the froggy prince wall pocket which I like but the only place to put it is beside Sakura & Natsuki's bed and I know they won't be able to resist touching it when they're supposed to go to sleep so I'll wait on that.

I can't decide what to put above the shelves that hold the toys.

This wall is especially bare. I have a signed poster from the author of a book we love (Suki's Kimono) to frame for the other wall so I was thinking of doing a poster from another book for this wall but I can't find anything that would suit the room. Any ideas? I can buy through Amazon or Posters.com so there is a pretty wide selection but I've lost steam for this room! Any help would be appreciated.

bullet points now and then

2010-10-02T15:51:00.003+09:00

I found this post from October 2009 that I had saved as a draft for some reason. It's so funny to look back and remember what we were going through and how far we've come.

Misaki slipped (on nothing) at school and fell backwards, smacked her head (on nothing) and got a small cut on her head. The school nurse called to inform me that they were taking her to the hospital to have the doctor check it and then called me a few hours later to say that they had put one staple (!) in her head. Fortunately there were no other problems (dizziness, etc.) and a week later we had the staple pulled out and everything's OK. Now the paperwork begins. Our health insurance covers 70% and the school will cover the other 30% but I have to get the hospital to fill out one form (which will take two weeks), then we have to fill out another one to accompany it, turn it in and then wait 3 months to get reimbursed. All this for about 20 bucks. But she was cute with the bandage around her head.

Update from 2010! I never did the paperwork. It was too complicated (typical) for too little return.

Emi and Misaki had their sports day last Sunday. The weather was perfect and we had great seats with friends. The girls were awesome in their events and performances. Usually I don't praise one child over another but Emi did so amazing in her 80m race that I actually think it would be unfair not to mention it. There are about 90 kids in the 3rd grade at her school and the teachers painstakingly decide which six kids will run against each other so that each race is still competitive. Emi ran against five other girls and boys and halfway through the race she was already pulling ahead and before the finish line there was no one even close to her! She was so proud of herself and so were we. Another interesting thing about this year was how easy it was to get everything ready. Usually I'm running around trying to find mats, making our lunch, getting the kids ready and stuff like that but this year we were out the door on time, we found a great place to put our mat down for lunch and it was really relaxing. I feel like I conquered another hurdle of life in Japan.

I am so worried about Sakura's sports day. As of today it looks like the weather might cooperate but if it doesn't Chikara and I are going to miss her first sports day and that seriously sucks. Due to poor planning on my part and the stupid Silver Week vacation pushing back the date for her sports day I will be in Portland for the "rescheduled sports day" and Chikara will have to work. I've asked our closest friends to go in our place and they're really excited about it but I'm just sick over the fact that this has ended up happening to Sakura. So I've got my fingers crossed that everything works out fine, the typhoon passes quickly and there is good weather for Friday so I can go and be the good mother that I want to be. Grrr.

Update from 2010! The weather turned out fabulous and I was able to go and cheer Sakura on and then hop on the plane the next day for a shopping trip with my mom and sister!

Chikara needs to change his diet. He's got this and although at this point it's reversible it means he's got to give up most of his favorite foods and make a permanent change to his lifestyle. He's really upbeat about it and honestly the timing couldn't be better but it's just one more thing on top of everything else. Recently I've started to enjoy cooking or maybe it's that I finally have time to think about cooking but it was fun to look around the internet for new recipes and browse the supermarket for new options. My plan is to slowly work new meals in to what I make now and phase out the meals that have a high carbohydrate content (bye-bye yakisoba). I guess we'll all be getting healthier together.

Update from 2010! Chikara is amazing. He has lost 12kg over the last year mostly by being more careful about what he's eating. At his last yearly health check all of his levels were back to normal!

Natsuki's potty training is not going well which is mostly because of my busy schedule. I can remember when my youngest brother (also the fourth child) was being potty trained that while mom had him sitting on the toilet we would walk back and forth in the doorway making crazy faces to entertain him while mom waited for him to pee. I guess it took all of us to keep him on track and it seems like it's going to be like that for Natsuki, too. After I get back from my trip then Natsuki will be my only priority until we're done with diapers.

Update from 2010! Natsuki is potty-trained and I am enjoying a diaper-free life!

Then there's just regular busyness like Chikara being at work more, me and my English classes and parenting groups. Even without trying our days just fill up. Last weekend we had a good-bye dinner for friends that are moving back to the States, a trip to the hospital to take Misaki's staple out of her head, met a friend at the mall to catch up, Emi and Misaki's sports day and a party to welcome a friend to Osaka. Phew!

Update from 2010! Still busy... I guess some things never change!

good news for fans of Old Navy

2010-09-07T14:17:00.000+09:00

Even though it's still soooo hot outside, or maybe *especially* when it's hot outside, I like to start thinking about things I need to do before Fall comes. Apparently this year the Summer is going to last so long that Fall is going to get lost in the shuffle and we'll head right towards Winter but that doesn't really bother me. As long as it cools down, I'll be happy.

One of the things that always needs to be done is organize the girl's winter clothes and buy whatever they need. Usually I search through Old Navy to see what they have available, then I let the girls take a look and after a few ooh's and aah's mixed with a few arguments, we write a list of things to buy. Then I send the list to my mom with some money and she goes shopping and then sends everything to me. It's a chore but it seems to work out well. Last year I went to the US in October so I just bought everything myself at that time. It made me really appreciate all the beautiful outfits my mom has picked out for us!

Anyways, that time of year has come again but when I went to check out Old Navy's website it said that they will now be offering International Shipping! I could not be more excited. I took a look at it and after I chose Japan all the prices were listed in yen! I didn't have time this morning to find out how much the shipping will cost. It could turn out that it's cheaper to ask my mom to help out but I'm excited to take a look when I get home and find out!

Yeah for Old Navy!

Also, since I'm already writing...

While our car was getting fixed, Chikara scratched the rental car!? We're still not sure what's going to happen with that but they got our car back to us yesterday so Chikara was able to register it in our name so now we're free to drive like maniacs and get pulled over!

two steps forward...

2010-09-03T16:58:00.001+09:00

Since I dedicated the last part of 2010 to fixing the problems that occurred in the first half, things had been going well. We got a car, I got my driver's license and Chikara's leg continues to improve. Last week they took a few more wedges out of his brace so he's able to talk a little more normally. When he first got the brace it had 7 wedges that helped prop up his heel so there wouldn't be any pulling or tension on his tendon. They took out one wedge three weeks ago and then last week the doctor took out two and then said he would take out the rest today. He still has to wear the brace but he doesn't need to use crutches unless it's a long distance. Yeah!

On Monday I went to the doctor and took the radioactive iodine that is supposed to help my hyperthyroidism. I wasn't sure what to expect but it turned out to be three regular looking pills that I took while the tech guy watched. I don't feel any different but I have been keeping to myself to avoid the possibility of radiation exposure to the girls and Chikara. If you read the link there is a lot more information if you're interested. To be honest not being allowed to touch the girls could not have come at a better time. Emi, Misaki and Sakura went back to school this week so they weren't even home most of the time and Natsuki seemed to understand that I'd taken "medicine" so she couldn't touch me. But the worst part is over and now I'm just trying to be careful until Monday.

I also fixed our bed yesterday. Earlier this year the slats on Chikara's side of the bed would occasionally fall out. I know he moves a lot at night but it was just ridiculous! Then he hurt his leg and could barely make it to the 2nd floor and didn't even want to think about going up to the 3rd floor where our room is. But then we got our electric bill and after running four A/C units all night it was a bit of a shock. Plus his leg is getting better so last night was the first time we've slept together in a bed since early June (except for our "sleepovers" in the living room). Although it was nice to be back together I soon realized how much I had become used to having a Queen-size bed to myself!

So all of that is good, right! I was checking things off my to-do list and it was getting shorter. But then on Wednesday while Chikara was at one of his bi-weekly doctor appointments (I'll be so glad when those end), a lady hit our new car in the parking lot. She was bringing her husband to see the doctor so he hobbled in on crutches and spoke to the nurse and she called for the owner of the Honda LaGreat in the parking lot. Chikara went out there and she had managed to knock the number plate off the front bumper and the whole bumper was a little loose. Crap! By the Chikara came home at 10pm he was pretty down.

Obviously their car insurance will pay for everything but it's just one more thing to do. I was imagining that we'd have to get an estimate, take it in, wait for it to be fixed (how would we get around) and then pick it up and arrange for it to be paid. Fortunately it turned out way easier than that. After a few phone calls the repair shop we used for our shaken (car inspection) could do it. They arranged to come and pick up our car and leave a rental for us to use and the car will be fixed by Wednesday. The only real problem with this plan is that Chikara was going to change the registration on the car on Tuesday so we'll have to wait until the Tuesday after that. If we get pulled over in the meantime the car auction will charge us an extra $400-$500 dollars in addition to any ticket we would get since it's their name on the registration.

Seems like I'll need to write my to-do list over again...

second hurdle...

2010-08-19T15:05:00.001+09:00

The second big hurdle was my driver's license. It's actually been an ongoing problem and everytime we thought it was taken care of another surprise would be waiting.

This story starts from when I was young. When I was 12 I was rollerskating outside and when I was finished I couldn't get the laces undone so I skated into the basement to ask for help from my dad. I slippped and fell on my butt, passed out and had a seizure. My parents took me to the hospital where they checked me out and said I was fine. Mom was concerned because there was another episode when I was 2 or 3 where I had fallen down a few stairs and had a seizure so we went to our family doctor and they administered some other tests but nothing was found so we let it drop. When I was 14 and we were on vacation in Indiana, I had a really bad ear infection. Mom took me to a doctor there and I was sitting on the table after he had finished looking in my ears and suddenly I passed out. None of these episodes lasted very long but because there was an accident (falling down stairs, slipping on the concrete, ear infection) the doctors thought it was all related. Again they couldn't find anything wrong with me.

I went through high school without any other incident. When I was 20 I had a bad cold and I remember passing out in the bathroom but there was no seizure that time. Then I got married at 23 and within a year I had two more episodes. These were more random, there was no accident or injury of any kind. The first one happened after we had been out all morning, came home in the late afternoon and had a nap. The phone rang around 5:30pm and I got up to answer it. It was my MIL and I remember calling Chikara and when he came around the corner I was out cold on the floor. My MIL hung up and called my parents and Chikara called 911. Everyone arrived around the same time but I was already awake. We went to the emergency room and again, they checked me out but could find nothing wrong. We went to our doctor the next week and she basically laughed at our concerns and said I was young and nothing was wrong with me. We switched doctors.

After the second episode we went to the doctor but we got a similar response so we just let it drop. Within a year we were thinking about trying to get pregnant and Chikara wanted me to try one more time to make sure there was nothing wrong before we started trying. We went to yet another doctor and he was very nice and listened. He said it sounded like nothing was specifically wrong but since we were concerned he would ask a colleague of his who was a neurologist and if she thought it was worth pursuing he would give us a referral. She did want to see us so we went, repeated my history again, underwent some more tests (EEG, MRI) and then she gave us a definitive answer. I had a mild form of epilepsy, but I would only have a seizure if two of three situations coincided. If I had low blood sugar (like right before a meal), hadn't slept well or had an adrenalin rush and I bonked myself I would most likely have a seizure. I didn't need to take medicine for it.

You might be wondering at this point what any of this has to do with my driver's license and this is where these two stories intersect. The neurologist said that anyone who has a seizure has to report it to the DMV and you can't drive for a year in case you have a seizure while driving. Within a year if you haven't had a seizure then your doctor fills out a medical release form and the DMV will reinstate your license. The neurologist told me all of this but because it had been a year since my last siezure she would file both forms for me so there was nothing for me to do. She also told us it was fine for us to try and have a baby. We felt good about all the information we had received and especially Chikara's fears were relieved.

So I went on driving as I had since I was 16 and in 2001 we moved to Japan. Chikara also got his driver's license in the States so when we moved he went down to the DMV-equivalent here and switched his license over to a Japanese license. It was a hassle and he had to take the driving test three times before he passed but within a month it was all taken care of. To this day I'm still not sure why I didn't switch my license at the same time. I know I was 3 months pregnant and Emi was 8 months old but I should've just done it then. But we didn't own a car and I didn't know how to go anywhere so Chikara just drove us around. After we'd been in Japan for 3 years we bought our house and bought a car. I got an International Driver's License and drove with that for a couple of years. At one point I realized my American driver's license was going to expire so on the next trip back home I went down to the DMV to renew it. I was shocked to find out that my license was on medical suspense from 1999. Shocked!

There was nothing I could do about it on that trip so I made plans to take care of it on the next trip home. My mother called our old family doctor who agreed to see me and I had his office fill out the medical release forms. The DMV accepted them and my license was reinstated but I still had to take the written and driving tests again. I spent all of my 2005 vacation working on it but on the very last day I passed the driving test and received my new license. Yeah! On the drive back up to Canada by coincidence we ended up at the same rest area as my parents and when I showed them my license I felt like I was 16 again! I passed! I passed! It was a great feeling.

I came back to Osaka with my license and a new International Driver's License and my only goal was to switch to a Japanese license. Chikara started researching and that's when surprise number two came up. In order to switch the license you had to have lived in the country of issue for 90 days from the issue date. At that point I only had one day alltogether. Then I found out I was pregnant with Natsuki and we had to put this issue aside. Natsuki was born and we went back home again and I got another International DL and we came back and now I had amassed 15 days in the US. Honestly I didn't know what to do at this point and there were a lot of other things going on. Emi started elementary school and I just had my hands full so I just pushed the license issue to the end of the list and decided to work on it when some new info came up.

Time went by and then Gina got her Japanese DL so I e-mailed her and asked for some information and she told me that she and her husband had found that you didn't need 90 days in a row but it could be spread out over time. By then I'd been home one more time so I had around 50 days and we had another trip coming up so we just decided to hold out until we had 90 days and then we would go for it. The other option was going to driving school but that cost $3000 and would take a few months and that just wasn't possible with two young kids at home.

This year after our trip to Arizona I sat down with my passports to see how many days I had amassed and I realized that when we flew to Canada and then went into the States they didn't stamp my passport. I checked Chikara's passport and they only stamped coming into the States and not going out. There was no way to prove anything but even then I only had 85 days. pooh...

Then in July, I borrowed my friend's car to go to the hospital for my hyperthyroidism because Chikara needed our car because of his torn Achilles Heel (see how things snowball) and as I was pulling out of her driveway I noticed an old guy on a bicycle way down the street. I pulled out a bit and checked both ways and was about to turn when I noticed that the umbrella he was holding was blown by the wind in front of his eyes. As I watched he started to lose control of his bicycle while still trying to get control of his umbrella and because I wasn't used to my friend's car I couldn't back out of the way and even though there was tons of room to go around me he slammed right into the hood of her car. Fortunately I was stopped and he wasn't going very fast but he still fell down and scratched my friend's car. He got up and was apologizing and I was asking if he was OK. I wasn't sure what to do next but he asked me what we should do about the scratch on my car. I ran back and called my friend and she said it was fine because there were scratches all over and he apologized and rode away.

Everything turned out OK since the guy never reported the accident and our friends didn't care but this prompted Chikara to worry and he thought we should just go and try and switch my license. I was upset because it's easy to say but could make my life really difficult in the middle of everything else we're going through and I needed him to understand that. After many discussions and a little crying on my part he finally called the DMV here and talked to a really nice lady and she said we could come and ask for "advice" instead of actually applying and they would let me know.

So we did that and after a lot of questions and paperwork they decided to accept my license on the basis that it wasn't "renewed" it was "reinstated" according to some records I had requested. All of a sudden I'm taking the written test and signing stuff and then I was allowed to schedule my driving test, the last hurdle in a marathon of hurdles to get my license.

Gina wrote about it on her blog but basically the test (like all things in Japan) is not so much about your driving skill but about your skill at taking their driving test. They are looking for really picky things that no real driver does on an actual road. But I knew this and I'm prepared mentally and have memorized the course. I wake up really early last Friday morning and Chikara drops me off the DMV and before the doors open I walk through the course mentally going through every move. Then I go in and wait in the line, turn in my paper, pay the fee to rent their car and go to another room. I wait and then my name is called and I'm given a number. I watch the other foreign drivers take their test and no one is passing which makes me nervous. Then my number is called and I go downstairs and wait. When the car comes back the guy before me is next and I get to ride in the back and watch. Beside the guy before me in front is a proctor and beside me in the backseat is another proctor. He starts the test and I have no idea how he's doing. Both of the proctors are marking things but the guy makes it to the end and I get out and I can see they're telling him he passed. So what I saw was a good test.

Then it's my turn and I'm the last one so there's no one riding in the back and watching me. The front proctor calls my name and I go look under the front of the car and then under the back. I look both ways before opening the door and I sit down. I hand the proctor my forms and I put my bag in the back seat. I say my name and birthday and he shows me a few things about the car and the test begins. I adjust the seat and the mirrors, put on my seatbelt and start the car. I release the parking brake, look back on both sides, put the car in drive and pull out. The first time I use the brakes (right before entering the course) I realize they are very sensitive and this throws me off. I'm trying to do all I prepared for and not stop too jerky (jerkily?) and I get past the first corner, second corner, streetlight and to the next stop and the proctor stops me and tells me to go back to the beginning. He tells me that my braking is too soft (even though I completely stopped and counted to three) and that I'm not pulling to the side of the lane before turning. I am embaressed at this point but I know getting mad or asking questions is not going to help so I get out and go make another appointment for the following Wednesday and go home. Chikara commiserates with me and the girls can't figure out why I failed. Emi even gets mad on my behalf but that led to a good conversation about life.

From Friday to Wednesday the driving course keeps appearing in my dreams. No matter where my dream starts it ends on the driving course and even that never ends well. I'm not freaking out but the fact that I failed once and could still fail again is always in the back of my mind. There are so many things going on in these few weeks but if I can pass the test within my summer vacation then I don't have to fit it in with the girl's school schedules and my class schedule.

On Friday we go camping with our friends until Saturday. On Sunday we go to church and we host a somen party in the evening for church families (at the church not my house thankfully) and Monday we try to relax but we have to prepare for the church's childrens camp that we're leading. My sleep schedule goes all wonky and I start getting dizzy periodically but I figure if I can hold out for one more week then everything will calm down. Tuesday ends up being a work at home day but we go out in the evening for a bit since it is the last day of Chikara's summer vacation from work. I go to bed at 10:30 but I can't get to sleep. I have my alarm set for 6:30 so I can take a shower (just in case there's a need to take a picture) but 12am rolls around and I'm still not asleep, 1am comes and I'm tossing and turning. I did finally fall asleep but I didn't hear my alarm in the morning. Fortunately Chikara wakes me up with time to spare and I quickly get ready and he drops me off at the DMV to try again.

I do the whole thing again except this time I'm #7 out of 8 and the first three people pass! The next lady is called and then I'm called to go downstairs and wait. #4 doesn't pass and #5 comes back after the second turn. Then I sit in the back while #6 takes her test. She turns out to be an unbelievably awful driver. I was actually scared to be in the car and I was happy when they told her she'd lost too many points to be able to pass so she would have to go back to the start. I was soooo happy to get out of that car.

Then it's my turn. I do the whole check under the car thing and get in the car. I pass my forms to the guy (different guy than Friday) and say my name. He asks me to look front so he can confirm I'm wearing contacts. Then I start the test. I'm prepared to do some heavy braking this time so I pull out onto the course never going above 20km/h so it won't be too jerky. I make the first corner, lane change, the second corner, the street light, the third, fourth and fifth corner, lane change, street light again, turn into the S curve area, make the curve easily, turn two more times, head into the crank turn area, stop once to back up just in case, but make it through and then a few more turns and lane changes and I'm back to the start. I'm holding my breath but he says I pass!

After he makes sure I know where I'm supposed to go next (appreciate the thoroughness but not the condescension), I'm out of the car and done with the last hurdle. It takes until 3:30pm to complete the final steps like signing forms, secret codes and picture taking but I walked out holding my license and a real weight was lifted off my shoulders. I didn't realized how worried I was that I could be stopped by police and *have* to deal with this whole thing. I think not knowing how it would go but know it was complicated stopped me from just starting the process.

But there you go. Second hurdle. Done.

jumping the first hurdle...

2010-08-19T12:07:00.005+09:00

Last Monday Chikara had a surprise day off. I needed to go to the shopping mall near us to make some appointments and get a few things. The mall is only 10 minutes away and even though our car overheats easily, up until now that distance doesn't cause any problems. I hopped in the car after Sakura and Natsuki were down for their nap and arrived without incident (and without A/C). I got all my errands finished and headed back home. There was a little bit of traffic and I had to wait at one red light but by the time I got home there was smoke coming out of the engine! I guess if we had nowhere to go then it wouldn't be a problem but we had two camps coming up and we needed to be able to drive at least an hour away safely. I walked into the house and told Chikara what had happened.

We started to brainstorm about possible solutions. We can't borrow a car from a friend during those times, it's too expensive to rent, we could see if we can pay to fix our car but it's only a stopgap measure, or we could buy a new car. Fortunately Chikara's job is buying cars at auction and selling them to other countries. We decided that Chikara would go in the morning and have our car looked at and at the same time we started looking at what cars were up for auction the next day. We lucked out that there was an auction going on in Kobe and we had to go to Kobe the next day for my doctor's appointment. If we could find a good car in our price range, we could conceivably pick it up and drive it right away. It would solve a lot of our problems.

So Chikara started researching cars that were available and showing them to me. After awhile the cars started to blur together in my head. Prices, colors, auction houses, car names were all swirling around in my head. Needless to say there were a few arguments and misunderstandings and after all that we didn't see anything we liked on Monday. At this point I wasn't sure what to do. Tuesday morning Chikara took our Odysey to Autobacs (car place!) and they said that the radiator is leaking fluid and the radiator fan isn't moving. They could fix our car for our $800 but we had already decided that if it was going to cost that much we would rather just look for a new car. The guy topped off the water in the radiator (?) and Chikara got back home around 10:30.

We had to leave for Kobe at 12:30 in order to make it in time for my doctor's appointment so Chikara started searching for cars again. Around 11:30 he showed me a car that was available at the Kobe auction that I liked the look of. The more he told me, the more I liked it and the more he researched about the car, the more he liked it! Again, I should mention that we had planned to do all of this in October when we had more time and money but after a few discussions on Monday we decided to try and get a car for about $2000 that would last us for a year and then we could try again to get a car that really met our needs. At this point we needed a car that seated all of us, had air conditioning and could fit two guitars in the trunk. This car met all of those needs. We debated for a few minutes, Chikara looked around to see if there was anything better and by 12 we had pressed the button and bought it! I was really relieved to have made that decision.

We left for Kobe as planned and we got stuck in traffic. We told our Odysey that it only had to take us as far as the hospital and we prayed that we would make it that far. At one point I was thinking just to abandon it on the side of the road and take a taxi. There was smoke coming out of the engine and to help the engine cool down we had the heater on full blast. The kids were so hot, especially Natsuki in her carseat, so I sat in the back with them and we talked and told jokes to pass the time. We were very happy when we made it to the hospital, parked that car and gave it a much needed rest.

I went into the hospital with the girls and Chikara took a taxi to the car auction place which turned out to be conveniently close to the hospital. I had hoped that Chikara would make it back in time for my appointment but there were a few hiccups at the auction place so my doctor agreed to wait until he could make it back. We saw the doctor (more on that later), Chikara asked a ton of questions, we paid and took the girls out to see our new (to us) car. The girls were so excited and we were just relieved to have made it to this point in the day!

One more wandering drive led us to a gas station to fill up the car and we got our first surprise. The engine is 3500cc's so the gas tank is bigger. It cost us $100 to fill up the tank! Yikes! With both cars we drove to Chikara's company to drop off our Odysey. It was a tedious drive with lots of lights and slow drivers (with an impromptu stop for dinner) but again the Odysey made it without breaking down and we were grateful to be able to clean it out and leave it parked there!

At this point it was 8:30pm and Chikara thought we should stop in to see the owner of his company. They live across the street from the company building but they are moving back to New Zealand next week and we thought this would be a good opportunity to say good-bye. They have four daughters like us and my girls love playing with them. We tried to call but there was no answer so we literally walked up and rang the doorbell! They are very gracious people and invited us in for some dessert. We chatted for about an hour and by this time we were pretty tired so I asked my girls to go to the bathroom before we left. Ten minutes later Misaki was the only one who hadn't used the bathroom so I rounded her up and told her to go. We were standing in the hallway and she opened the wrong door, closed it and went down the hallway a bit to the right door. She had accidentally opened the door to a storage closet and I had glimpsed a KitchenAid mixer. They had just finished telling us they couldn't bring any of their electrical appliances because the voltage is different and here I was looking at a KitchenAid mixer. Normally I would never ask but I knew the owner's wife would have no problem saying no to me so I asked if she was taking her KitchenAid with her. She asked me if I wanted it, I said are you sure (!) and she said she would lend it to me for the next five years until she comes back. So...

Voila!

Chikara was a little shocked and offended that I had asked for her KitchenAid but she said she was glad someone who would really appreciate it would be using it. So I brought it home and the girls and I made delicious cookies the next day! We piled in our new car and drove home in comfortable silence and were very happy to get into our beds.

It's been 10 days since we bought our car and we keep discovering cool things about it. It has a rearview camera so you can see behind you when backing up. This has been awesome especially since it's a little wider than our Odysey so an even tighter fit getting into our garage. It has seat warmers which will be nice in the winter. The sliding doors are automatic so you can press a button to open them or just pull the handle and it slides open (awesome when I went grocery shopping). It has captain's chairs in the center aisle and fits three in the back seat. I went back there to try it out and there was a lot of leg room and the seat was very comfortable. The trunk is huge! The only drawback so far is the added gas expense so I'm keeping track to see how much more we end up spending and then we can decide if we'll sell it next year or keep it. We don't have to do the car inspection until next August so that has given us a little breathing room. With all that we only paid $2200 after fees and taxes so we are pretty happy.

It's a Honda LaGreat and has some relation to an Odysey which is nice because all the buttons are in the same place on the console! It has 135,500 kilometers on it but the guy who owned it before took very good care of it so it should last until next August if not longer. Mostly I'm just hoping it lasts through the hot summer!!!

So one of the problems of 2010 has been dealt with. One hurdle has been jumped. I'm praying everything else resolves as quickly.

remember me?

2010-08-07T14:57:00.004+09:00

Hi!

I was reading through my blog looking for something I had written about the girls and it was so much fun! I had forgotten some of the cute things the girls had said and a few of the parenting struggles we'd gone through. As I was reading I realized that I should keep up this "recordkeeping" in some shape or form. I was cleaning out our loft and I came across my baby book. My mom wrote a lot about my first year and then after that for birthday or other events she would write little snippets of what I was like at that age. I'm sure my youngest brother would be shocked to learn that "it was heartwarming to see how much Sarah takes care of Joel". I know I was! So even though it may be of no interest to anyone but me and my family I am going to try and continue to write about our lives.

2010 has proved to be a more interesting year than I anticipated in all sorts of ways.

January- recuperating from the holidays
February - a bad throat infection for me, another febrile seizure for Natsuki
March - went to visit my brother and his family in Arizona for Spring Break, got another throat infection
April - school starts (Emi - 4th grade, Misaki - 3rd grade, Sakura - kindergarten), my doctor runs some tests and discovers that I have hyperthyroidism (my dad had this when he was about my age), Natsuki gets chicken pox
May - Golden Week (awesome!), get a reaction to the first medicine for hyperthyroidism, Natsuki figures out how to use the toilet!
June - Chikara tears his Achilles Tendon playing basketball and has to have surgery to repair it, Natsuki has another febrile seizure this time because we all contracted Hand Foot Mouth Disease! She also is completely potty-train, even wearing panties at night. Yeah!
July - I have an allergic reaction to the second medicine for hyperthyroidism, Chikara continues physical therapy for his leg and fortunately is still able to go to work since it is his left leg that was injured, also I had a minor car accident while borrowing my friend's car
August - found out that the DMV will accept my driver's license (long story) so I'm on the way to getting my Japanese driver's license. Just a driving test left to pass! To top it all off, our car starts acting weird and now it overheats if we use the A/C.

So that's the first part of 2010 in a nutshell. Amazingly even in the middle of the craziness God really protected us. For example, we were informed that it would cost around $2000 (after insurance) for Chikara's surgery but it ended up costing only $500. Phew! Also the guy on the bicycle that ran into me when I was completely stopped in my friend's car never made a claim. Double phew! Through everything I find the most exhausting part was just all the thinking and planning and coming up with answers for every possible scenario. Also, usually I'm pretty healthy but with the hyperthyroidism, although not severe, still made me tired and the allergic reactions were a huge distraction. But we made it this far in one piece and the kids have been very helpful. So glad we didn't have to take care of a baby through all of this!

We still have a few hurdles in front of us. We will be going to the my doctor on Tuesday. There are no more types of medicine to treat my hyperthyroidism so the next step is using radioactive iodine to kill off part of my thyroid and if that doesn't work then I'll have to have surgery to remove part of it. We'll see what happens on Tuesday. Also, our car is acting weird so instead of buying a new car in October like we planned we'll have to do it now. I hate making rush decisions so I'm praying that we find the perfect car for us quickly. Lastly, I need to pass the driving test to get a Japanese driver's license within August. We're just too busy from September for me to be going over there all the time. For those of you who don't know, the driving tests in Japan are killer. There is just a certain way they want you to drive the course and if you don't do it exactly right then the tester just sends you back to the beginning without an explanation. Fingers crossed that everything goes well on the 13th.

What else can I say? I have been very thankful for my friends during this time and of course my family supporting us through the phone!

Please enjoy these pictures of us...

November 2009 - Our First Trip to Disneyland

March 2010 - Most of my family together in Arizona!

August 2010 - The girls in their yukatas for a summer festival

Well, that's it for now.

what a cute daddy

2010-01-29T21:51:00.005+09:00

I was going through the pictures on our computer today and found a collection that I had put together for Chikara to celebrate Father's Day a few years ago.

A few are so cute that I have to share.

Asleep with Emi (1 month old)

Asleep with Misaki (2 months old)

Asleep with Natsuki (3 months old)

No pictures asleep with Sakura but this is cute!

An extra bonus pic asleep with Misaki (2 years old)

Chikara has definitely always been available to assist with naptimes!

he got it right!!

2009-12-02T16:50:00.003+09:00

Because all of my friends are moms of small children the only time we can get together and talk uninterrupted is in the middle of the night. And we do just that. About every two months or so we'll meet at one of our houses around 10 and then talk until 4 or 5 in the morning. It's totally cathartic and even though we're tired the next day it's totally worth it.

We got together last Sunday and during the course of our conversation we were talking about how our friends seems to know us better than our husbands. It started off with birthday and Christmas presents but then morphed into a conversation about our likes and dislikes and how it feels like our husbands have no clue. Of course we can tell them what we want them to do but that misses the point. I get nervous for my husband when we get to this time of the year because I know he feels a lot of pressure but telling him what I want for Christmas just takes the fun out of actually opening the present. Does that make sense?

So I was mulling this over when I was driving back home after my Tuesday English classes and wondering how I could help out my husband. He's really sweet and he tries so hard but sometimes he just totally misses. As I pulled into our street I noticed that someone had put up their Christmas lights and I thought that we need to make a time to do that until I realized that...

IT WAS MY HOUSE!!!!!

My husband put up our Christmas lights while I was at my classes. I was so excited! Without having to ask he totally did something I was hoping he would do. Of course I ran right in and gave him a big hug and kiss. I really hope he knows how happy that made me. Then today I called my friends and gave them hope that husbands do occasionally get it right!!

----

Thanks for the advice about the Wii. I'm going to think about it some more but I'm leaning more towards getting one.

all I want for Christmas...

2009-12-01T23:40:00.004+09:00

So I brought up the Wii conversation with Chikara. Is anybody else having a hard time deciding what to get their kids for Christmas? Maybe it's just me. Can I explain? Yes, because this is my blog (even though I haven't written for awhile).

We have four girls and although they have different personalities for the most part they play with the same toys. Which means that Natsuki is playing with toys that Emi played with when she was the same age and really, if you want to get into it, she wears some of the same clothes, too. But I don't have space for more toys. We have dolls and accessories, Barbies and accessories, kitchen toys, princess dress-up clothes and accessories (four pairs of Princess heels!), shelfloads of books, Sylvania Family toys and accessories and Lego plus a neverending mountain of miscellaneous toys. I also keep them in constant supply of paper, crayons, color pencils, stickers and playdough. They enjoy the toys that we have and they take good care of them so that really Natsuki is playing with the same toys that Emi did. I even rotate the toys around and keep some hidden away in our loft so the kids don't get bored.

So my problem is what to get them for Christmas and also Emi for her birthday (the 16th). Emi is turning 9 this year and Chikara really wanted to get her a normal-sized guitar but I talked him into waiting until next year. If she got it this year it would be nice but I think she'll appreciate it more next year plus it's the perfect memorable 10th birthday present. I've been making lists of possible Christmas presents and they're all "side presents" or presents that would build up to the "big present" so I'm totally stumped.

Up until now, we've avoided DS and Wii on purpose. We have a lot of reasons but the biggest are that we want the girls to interact and play with each other and learn how to use their imagination and creative side. I'm crap at drawing but Chikara is very gifted and I want the girls to have time to explore that area of their DNA. Actually Misaki won 3rd place for a drawing she did at school last year and my first thought was,"Wow, she definitely got that from Chikara". Also playing together develops social skills and problem-solving skills. And if all that isn't enough we want to teach the girls music and also work on their English reading and writing skills and if we buy a Wii set I just can't picture how we're going to do all of this is in the amount of time available each day.

So my reasons for not buying a Wii are plentiful and my reasons for buying a Wii are that I don't have any other good ideas for Christmas presents and I think it'd be fun. Arghh...

While I think about it, take a look at this. I love the Muppets!

cold snap

2009-11-04T09:14:00.003+09:00

Hi everyone!

The weather changed yesterday and all of a sudden it's cold. One day the heaters weren't even plugged in and now they're going full blast. And I have to say I'm happy about it for several reasons.

One: I'm supposed to be planning some Christmas events and it was really hard to get in the mood when it's still over 70 degrees outside.

Two: Every morning the girls and I had a hard time deciding what clothes to wear. Is today a shorts and T-shirt day? A jeans and T-shirt day? Should we wear long sleeves or a T-shirt and a jacket? Sometimes we were wrong and the girls would come home hot and sweaty or freezing cold.

Three: Because of "two" I had to figure out how to cram most of the girl's summer clothes and their winter clothes into their drawers. That seriously doesn't work. I will happily pack away all of our summer clothes this week. Yes, I said happily because I love organizing. And if you're giggling behind your computer screen at me when you can just shut it!!

Four: We are getting sick of summer food but it wasn't quite time for winter food. Now I can add stews and nabe into my weekly menu.

Five: I just love the cool weather. I love how the air smells and I love how clear and blue the sky is and because of this wonderful season I can bear living through the awful summer.

Six: And this is really the most important. I can finally wear all the clothes I bought in Portland last month!!

curry

2009-09-26T09:51:00.002+09:00

Yesterday I made curry for dinner. I don't make curry very often because twice a month at church the kitchen ladies make it for lunch and because of that the girls aren't excited when I make it at home. But occasionally I run out of other options so I make it anyways and just ignore the whining. Case in point:

I serve curry and everyone sits down

Emi: What? Curry? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

Emi takes one bite

Emi: Humph. I like the curry at church better.

Me: Do you think Daddy likes my curry or the curry at church better?

Emi & Misaki together: Yours.

Misaki: Yes, that's because he doesn't want to break your heart.

Misaki is so adorable.

more on socializing and other tidbits

2009-09-17T08:58:00.004+09:00

Thanks for all your comments on my last post and I wanted to add a little bit more about our neighborhood. Kids always show up at our door asking to play with Emi and Misaki. For the most part they appear at times when the girls are allowed to play outside. If my girls haven't finished their homework or we have something we have to do then I just say no and usually kids just come back at another time. As Emi and Misaki have been able to understand how to be safe outside I've let them go farther and farther on their own so now they show up at other people's houses and ask to play, too. Recently they've also asked for the phone numbers of their friends so they can call and make sure it's OK to come over. I like this arrangement and up until now it's worked really well.

But I've never had a child show up, even after I just said no, and insist on being played with. Under normal circumstances I would've said no but she is shy and lonely (her mother works until late so she's with her grandmother most of the time) and I just didn't feel right about sending her away. Since the weekend we haven't gotten anymore calls and Emi says she's been playing with her at school. I wonder how this weekend will go.

My friend Henri wrote a really great response about what our responsibility is as Christians versus our responsibility as parents. This was the first time I found it hard to strike the right balance with Emi. How far is OK to go for this girl? Maybe it won't come up again but Emi and I need to come to an agreement about what is OK and if she's feeling overwhelmed then I need to be able to help her, too. We'll see...

In other Emi news, she really likes Star Wars. We've shown her Episodes I and IV and she thought they were so cool (Misaki was totally freaked out). She wants to watch the other episodes but Chikara and I don't think she's ready. She brings it up all the time and yesterday we had this conversation.

Emi: I want to watch Star Wars.

Me: No. We've talked about this. You need to wait until you're a "certain age".

Emi: THIRTY-EIGHT!

Silliness abounds.

Also today is Day Two of The Last Potty Training I'll Ever Need To Do! I did a trial run in July to see how much Natsuki understood about using the toilet and the anwer was: not much. She would sit and that was it. Then during summer vacation, when I wasn't potty training her, she pee'd on the toilet 3 times. It was always during bathtime and she would say, "I need to go potty" and then I would take her and she would actually go. The first time I thought it was a fluke but after the third time I realized that she knew she wasn't supposed to randomly pee without a diaper or a toilet.

I've been thinking about what the next step would be and I thought that if she knows that it's not OK to just pee anywhere that maybe if I put her in panties when she's awake she'd be just as careful as when she's in the bathtub. So I did it yesterday from about 10am and she pee'd twice in the potty and there were no accidents! She got a sticker to put on her chart each time and she was so excited. I put her diaper back on during her nap but when she woke up it was dry. I feel like this is a huge step forward from July so we'll continue this way each day and see if Natsuki continues to improve. Right now I ask her to go every 30 minutes so if we got to a place where she tells me she needs to go I would consider that progress. Wish me luck!

socializing

2009-09-12T13:27:00.005+09:00

I find that between Emi and Misaki, Misaki is definitely more social. She exchanges phone numbers and she makes plans to meet friends after school way more than Emi does. Emi does occasionally but I find that kids just show up at our house and ask Emi to play rather than make plans ahead of time. It's not a big deal. They have both made and kept friends in their own way.

But on Thursday, Emi came home after school with a girl from her class and asked if they could do homework together. Sure. When the girl came in the house I said hello and Emi said (in English), "Mom, she doesn't talk". I remember that Emi had said that was a girl that was really shy and didn't speak much so obviously this was her. Usually we try to avoid speaking English in front of other people but this was the perfect moment for Emi to do this. So they came in, did their homework and then the girl, Misa-chan, went home. I praised Emi for reaching out to this girl and asked a little more about how she's doing in school, etc.

We had to go to the doctor after school yesterday (Emi's having a wart burned off - gross!) and after we got back Misa-chan called to ask if she could play with Emi today. Unfortunately Emi was going to have to do her homework in the morning, lunch, and then our normal Saturday afternoon quiet time so she wouldn't be able to play until 4pm. Emi explained all this and they made a plan to get together at 4pm. Then Misa-chan called back a half hour later to ask if they could get together after Emi did her homework. Emi gently explained that it was not possible. She was really nice about it.

Since then Misa-chan called one more time last night and three times this morning. Seriously, for someone who doesn't like to talk, she did an awful lot of calling. She didn't really pester Emi but Emi said that it's hard to communicate with her. I ended up talking with Misa-chan the last time to let her know that we were having lunch now and Emi would not be able to play until 4pm. She said OK so I thought that was the end of it when the doorbell rang. What?!? She showed up with her bento to eat lunch with Emi. We were all in our pajamas and I wasn't even wearing a bra. Fortunately I had just vacuumed the kitchen/living room so I let her up (I did put on a bra but we stayed in our pajamas) and we had lunch together with her. The other thing is that the girls had been begging me to get out some videos I had stored that they used to watch when they were little. I had promised that if they helped me clean up I would dig them out and they could watch one while they ate lunch. Unfortunately they're only in English. I debated putting on something in Japanese to be nice to the girl but she just showed up uninvited and the girls had earned this reward so I was kind of stuck. The girls ate lunch in silence watching the video in English.

Finally around 1:30 I asked her to go home because we had something (read nap) to do. We're usually out all day on Sunday so I make sure the girls take a rest on Saturday afternoons. She went home and then it started to pour rain so Emi couldn't meet her at 4pm anyways.

We moved around a lot when I was young and I never had really close girlfriends in elementary school so I don't remember but is this how girls interact with each other? The phone calls got ridiculous (in my opinion) after awhile. Emi was very clear the first time that she couldn't play until 4pm but the girl just kept calling. She's not handicapped, she's just shy (and maybe lonely)so I don't think that misunderstanding was the problem. After everything was said and done, Emi was pretty annoyed. We just don't behave like that in our family. If a friend sets a time to meet then we wait until that time, plain and simple.

We'll see how things go. We are trying to teach our girls to be understanding of other people and to be friendly especially to those without friends but we try to balance that by setting boundaries when things get to be to much. Emi had a friend in first grade who came over all the time but she was really bossy and pushy and eventually Emi had to give her up as a friend because it was exhausting to play with her. We got lucky because that girl moved but I know that's not going to happen everytime.

I get more and more nervous as the girls get older. What are their relationships going to be like in junior high and high school? I'm really praying that they find good friends they can keep healthy friendships with. I see the stuff we're dealing with now as preparation, for me as well as them!!

pics from July 2009

2009-09-07T09:09:00.009+09:00

Emi and Natsuki smiling at our favorite sushi restaurant.

Daddy and Misaki like sushi!

Natsuki *begged* me to do her hair like this!

After Sakura's haircut. She looks like a model!

How can Natsuki possibly be sleeping in this position?

On July 25th was our neighborhood's festival so we got all dressed up (except for Emi who grew out of her yukata) and off we went.

Emi (It was a fight just to let me braid her hair!)

Misaki

Sakura

Natsuki

Eating Shaved Ice

The park where we have our neighborhood festival.

Only August left and I'm caught up. Yeah!

pics from June 2009

2009-09-05T11:17:00.002+09:00

I'm trying to catch up with blogging a bit so here are a few highlights from June. My mom came to visit us and we had Sakura's 5th birthday!

Natsuki doing her buttons!

The girls being silly at Sakura's b-day party. Notice the torn up shoji on the window behind them. Throughout the summer the shoji went from bad to worse.

Making Father's Day cards!

The dress mom made for Sakura. It's a little big so it'll fit her next year, too.

The quilt my mom made for Natsuki. It's Noah's Ark.

next up July...

ack!

2009-09-03T17:32:00.003+09:00

I had to get Sakura new inside shoes (uwagutsu) for when she went back to school on Tuesday and over the summer (only six weeks) she grew from a size 17cm to a size 18.5cm! That's three whole sizes. And Misaki's only in a size 19cm

Yikes

Also, her mizuibo (some kind of wart) suddenly cleared up last week so her teacher let her go in the pool for the last day.

She's becoming such a big girl except that...

She wouldn't dance at the festival at her preschool. She totally freaked out and we ended up going home and putting her right to bed. I did talk with her about what it means to be a "big girl" and that in order to get the fun of being a big girl (going outside, allowance, etc.) that you need to take responsibility and sometimes do stuff you don't want to do (say hello to neighborhood people, DANCE AT THE FESTIVAL). We'll see if she understood.

5 can be a trying age.

notes for next summer...

2009-09-02T09:26:00.005+09:00

Is anyone else as happy as I am that school has started up again? Yeah for school!

I have to say that every year I get better at managing all the free time we have during summer vacation. The first few years I was totally discombobulated. When I was trying to manage a baby, a toddler, pool schedules (that are out of my control), lunches, dinners, baths, house cleaning (well, not really), potty training and whatever else came along, I was just glad that we made it through the day, but I think my older two kids were really bored.

This year was totally different since Natsuki turned 3. Yes, my baby is 3 years old! I can hardly believe it. She isn't potty trained yet. I've been working on it but she hasn't understood what she's supposed to do. I know everyone says that the summer is the easiest time to potty train but with everything else going on I didn't want to have to worry about accidents so I decided to put potty training on hold. Diapers are safer. But in spite of that Natsuki did pee on the potty for the first time two days after her birthday so go figure! Anyhoo, during Chikara's week off we took the girls to a water park (complete with waterslides, etc.) and an amusement park. Usually we only do one big outing because that's all the girls can handle but Natsuki being just a little bit older even than Golden Week made all the difference. She totally got the fun of what we were doing and she could adapt to a different schedule. Because of that Emi and Misaki had a lot more fun than they normally do and we did, too.

There are a few things I would do different for next year and I'm actually writing this post to help me remember (hopefully).

1. I would plan something for the last half of our vacation (after Chikara has gone back to work). The first four weeks were full of camps and fun activities plus Emi and Misaki had homework and art projects they needed to do so those weeks went flying by. But from August 17th we totally hit a slump. Sure it was hot outside but I totally lost momentum and looking back I wish I had a few more things planned.

2. One part of Emi and Misaki's homework is to write a daily diary. There's only room for one sentence but they also have check boxes for the weather, if they helped me, if they did their homework, etc. When I glanced at it it didn't seem all that complicated so I just left it to the end and we ended up having to take a few hours this last Monday to complete. A lot of the days have a blank because we could not remember what we did. Next year I want to remember to put it on the fridge the first day of summer vacation and then fill it out as we go along. All the rest of their homework went really smoothly which is an improvement over last year.

3. I want to spend one day alone with each of my daughters and do something they like together. Because Chikara is going to work more now it was really me and all four girls together all the time. Especially I feel Sakura got lost in the shuffle.

That's it. I'll probably have a new list of things that crop up next year but for now these are the improvements I'd make. What I wouldn't change for the world are these monkeys...

(Emi's not in a yukata because she outgrew hers!)

um...

2009-07-24T09:48:00.003+09:00

Has this ever happened to you?

The other day I was with friends (English-speaking friends) and someone I had never met before joined us. She knew a few in our group and she said hello to them first and before my friends could introduce me, she turned to me and said, "Hello, my name is so-and-so, who are you?" It was said delightfully, you know, one adult to another but I totally choked on my words. Usually I'm with my kids or my husband and I'll say, "I'm Emi's mom" or "I'm Chikara's wife". Even introducing myself in Japanese is easy because there's form for that. Everyone in Japan introduces themselves the same way. I did manage to mumble my name out and I'm sure she didn't notice anything unusual but I felt like an idiot. Has it really been that long since I introduce myself to another English-speaking person? Grrr.

While I was reading one of my favorite blogs this morning, there was a post about appearing more confident at work and one of the points was about introducing yourself. It said simply to say, "Hi, my name is Sarah (my last name - not gonna write it here)" and then stop. Nothing else. Hopefully I can remember to do that the next time the opportunity arises.

if you have 45 minutes to spare...

2009-06-13T16:01:00.003+09:00

I would like to recommend for your viewing pleasure Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog.

Start here.

Star Trek

2009-06-09T10:53:00.003+09:00

Chikara and I have been wanting to go and watch Star Trek ever since we heard about it. I watched Star Trek and Star Trek: TNG when I was younger. I wouldn't call myself a Trekkie, but I enjoyed the shows and know most of the character's names. Chikara has also watched enough to be interested in seeing the movie.

Problem: I have never been able to get a babysitter. You know, a teenager who will come and watch your kids so you can go out with your husband and then you pay them. I've never seen it done here in Japan. Usually what we do is trade babysitting with our friends but they're all going through various difficult things right now so we didn't want to ask them. Our only option left was to ask Chikara's parents. This isn't necessarily a horrible option but they are busy on Sundays and Chikara's mom can get tired easily because of her kidney problems so this is usually a last option. But Chikara called his mom and she could come so we were really excited.

We bought our tickets online and I put the kids to bed while Chikara picked up his mom. I showed his mom where all the good snacks are and off we went.

The movie was awesome. We talked about it all the way home.

When we arrived home, I went into the living room and no one was there. We had seen Dad's car down the street so we knew both of them were at our house. I called out hello and mom came tiptoeing down the stairs. I turns out that Natsuki had called for me about 10 minutes after we left for the movie and when my MIL went in to see what she wanted, Natsuki freaked out. They tried everything to calm her down. They let her watch videos, gave her popsicles and juice, moved Misaki into another bed so Natsuki could be with Emi (her "other" mommy) but nothing had worked until about 10 minutes before we got home and she finally went to sleep. It was 11:30 at night and Emi was still awake, sitting beside Natsuki who was a knot of sweat and blankets.

I sighed and then moved everybody back to their own beds and laid beside Natsuki until she was asleep. It took only 10 minutes to put everything back the way it should be.

After the high of watching the best movie we've seen in awhile, coming home to the chaos brought us back to reality real fast. I can't decide if we should feel bad for my MIL or not. We rarely ask her to do this for us and she is their grandmother but basically she spent two and a half hours trying to figure out what to do for a crying and screaming Natsuki.

Next time we'll just ask our friends to watch the girls.

recent pics

2009-06-02T00:39:00.004+09:00

April 2009

Emi's 8th Birthday

Misaki's 7th Birthday

Sakura's Preschool Entrance Ceremony

Natsuki being cute at home!

Emi

2009-06-02T00:35:00.002+09:00

A conversation with Emi:

Emi: Can I help you with dinner?

Me: Not right now, I'm trying to get this done quickly.

Emi: Please, can I help you?

Me: Thanks for offering but not today, OK?

Emi: Please?

Me: No.

Emi: (exasperated) But, Mommy, I was *born* to help!!!

later that evening...

Me: Emi, can you get a diaper for me from the closet.

Emi: No.

Me: I thought you were "born to help"?

Emi: ... I'll get it.

thought provoking article

2009-03-28T17:47:00.001+09:00

As a mother with young children I know exactly what the author was thinking when she wrote this article about the passing of Natasha Richardson.

that's also true

2009-02-03T10:17:00.002+09:00

Yesterday Natsuki brought this DVD cover to me. I think she was trying to help clean up.

The Incredibles (or Mr. Incredible, as it's known in Japan) is easily our family's favorite movie. I pointed to Dash and asked...

Me: Who's this?

Natsuki: Dash.

Impressive since I didn't know she knew the names of any of the characters.

Me: Who's this? (pointing to Mr. Incredible)

Natsuki: Bob!

It took us a second to remember that Mr. Incredible's undercover name is Bob Parr. She was unexpectedly right! We are really enjoying the fact that she is talking more.

cooking inspiration needed!

2009-01-31T18:47:00.004+09:00

It's nice to be back to blogging again. I think I missed the connection the most. It was lovely to have comments to read again!

I'm not much of a cook (mom, Hannah, stop laughing!) but I have more time now so for the last year or so I have tried to discover one new recipe each season that I can make my own. I've learned how to make a lovely Parmesean-crusted baked chicken, Shepherd's Pie and okonomiyaki to add to the list of standard meals that I make each week (yakisoba, spaghetti, burritos, curry rice etc.). My husband and the girls love each new addition and look forward to when I make each one which is awesome but lately I'm lacking inspiration. I've searched for a new recipe to try out this Winter but nothing stands out. I see a lot of slow-cooker recipes but I don't own a slow cooker so that doesn't help me!

Can you help me out? Please share your favorite wintertime recipe with me! I am in desperate need of inspiration.

Thank you.

2009

2009-01-28T11:45:00.004+09:00

Happy New Year!

I feel like 2009 is just finally beginning even though January is almost gone. We've been either busy or sick, but mostly sick. Emi and Misaki's classes were cancelled for two days (gakyuhesai) because too many kids in their classes stayed home sick (15 out of 30 in Emi's class and 11 out of 30 in Misaki's class). Fortunately it was not the dreaded influenza. So they were home for two days which meant that Sakura and Natsuki caught the cold. Natsuki's fever spike and she had a febrile seizure. She was having a hard time breathing near the end so we called the ambulance and they took us to the hospital. I knew as soon as we boarded the ambulance and Natsuki took one look around and started screaming that she was fine but I wanted to have her checked by a doctor anyways. The doctor that we saw was very concerned that she might have influenza and not concerned enough (for me) about her seizure. Turned out that she just had a regular cold (which I knew) so he gave us some medicine (two different types of suppositories!) and sent us home. The next day Natsuki got a little dizzy sometimes and while trying to walk straight would drift off to the side or actually fall down. I finally had to make her sit down so she wouldn't hurt herself. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that we are all healthy again.

But I did not intend to start blogging in 2009 by complaining. I am very excited about this year and all it holds for us. As the year progresses I will share more about our plans (if I can ever get around to starting any of them!). In the meantime I will show you the girl's Christmas pictures.

Even though it's belated, I wish all of you a very Happy New Year! I look forward to reading (or hearing for the blog-less) about all the wonderful things that will happen this year.

what do you think?

2008-11-27T00:43:00.003+09:00

We got sick again this weekend with stomach flu (Natsuki, Sakura, Emi and I). Not fun. But in spite of everything I still taught English on Tuesday even though *really* I wanted to stay home.

I'm having a bit of a dilemma about the students in my classes. In every class I have at least one student who is awesome. They remember everything, even new stuff, they improve each week and I totally love teaching them. This would be great except that the other kids in the class are totally awful. I mean really horrible at everything. There are two students (in different classes) who are confrontational.

I wish I could ask these kids to quit. I have been preparing the mothers for that possibility by having the kids take a series of tests (once every three months) so that the mothers can see that there has been no improvement (AT ALL!).

But I'm starting to wonder if maybe I teach to a certain "learning type" of child. Maybe the awesome kids are awesome because they think like me. This idea occurred to me before the summer so I have been trying some different teaching styles but I'm still not reaching these kids.

So this is my question. Should I just teach all of the kids anyways (for the money) or is it OK to ask them to quit so I can concentrate on the kids that are doing really well? Is that too snobby?

Another complication is that because of the downturn in the economy Chikara's company may be in a difficult situation six months from now. My ability to make money could be really important next year especially since we will need to pay tuition for Sakura to go to preschool.

I'm usually really good at making decisions but I'd like some advice this time.

all the songs run together

2008-11-19T08:00:00.000+09:00

While I was gone Natsuki's English vocabulary expanded. I have been surprised everyday by how much she can say that I actually understand. I think that when she's with me I already know what she's going to do or want so she doesn't bother trying to speak for herself. I'm going to be more careful from now on.

She also is singing more songs but they are starting to run together. My favorite mish-mash is "Running Over" mixed with "I Love You, You Love Me" from Barney. Here's how it goes.

Running over, running over
My cup is full and running over
Since the Lord saved me
I'm as happy as can be...
...With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you
Won't you say you love me, too.

I'm trying to get it on video because there's actions, too! I even get a kiss at the end.

a little better every day...

2008-11-18T08:00:00.000+09:00

I've been home for nine whole days and I still don't have my voice entirely back. Or my energy back. Or my strength back, for that matter. I do not recommend losing 6kg that quickly, although secretly (oops, I told you) I am a little thrilled. I have been unsuccessfully trying to lose a few pounds over the past months. No matter what I do the needle stays over the exact same number. OK, I haven't been trying *that* hard but I really wanted to to lose those last pounds of pregnancy weight. Also, I have never in my entire life been sick for this long. Ever. It's not fun.

... I want to clean the house but I don't have the energy. Then the house being so out of control makes me even more tired so that I don't even want to try to tidy up even a little.

... I know I need to eat but my stomach is only accepting a little at a time. Eventually thinking about having to eat or making dinner for the kids makes me tired.

... I really appreciate Chikara for taking such good care of the kids but I still need him to help out more than usual because, you guessed it, I'm tired. (He has been awesome, by the way)

So it's been going like that. I have noticed improvement and at church on Sunday a lot of the ladies gave sighs of relief when they saw me and said my color had improved over the week before. I am hoping that by the end of this week I have enough strength to start walking outside for some exercise.

Another side effect of being sick is weird dreams. Like, I saw on the news that it's supposed to get cold at the end of this week so that night I had a dream that it snowed and I got the girls all bundled up to go outside and play and then I realized that none of them had boots. They were all standing around in the entrance of the house in puffy jackets, scarves, toques and mittens but there were no boots. I was frantically opening all the closet doors looking for boots. I think it's related to the fact that I haven't been able to do as much for them as I normally do.

But I'm getting better. I am. Thanks for all of your well wishes.

thank you

2008-11-13T08:00:00.000+09:00

Thank you to everyone who left comments on my last post. It was comforting to know there were people out there thinking of me and my family. I am so glad I went home for the funeral. Even up until the day I left I wasn't sure if it was the right decision but once I landed and saw my mom, I knew I had done the right thing.

There were highs and lows during the trip. Highs: I got to spend a whole day with just my mom and another day with my sister. Nana's funeral was lovely. Honestly, our extended family is so much fun to be with, even when it is for a sad occasion. Lows: I got totally sick with laryngitis and couldn't eat much. I lost 6kg. The low of this is that I missed out on eating a lot of good food. I usually gain weight when I go home. Hmm, I guess you could look at that as a high and a low.

Chikara did a great job with the kids. The house was even clean when I got home! Thank you to Abigail, Ruri, Eri and my in-laws for helping with the kids, too.

It's going to take me awhile to get better and get the house back to normal so there probably won't be any posts from me for a bit.

nana

2008-10-31T08:00:00.001+09:00

My nana passed away last weekend. She has not been strong for the last year or so. When we were home in August she fell at her home and hit her head and although the injury wasn't that bad, from that day on she was just not the same and eventually had to move to a nursing home. I knew when I saw her before we left that it would probably be the last time but that doesn't mean her passing hasn't taken me by surprise.

So I will go home for a week to attend her funeral. My husband is letting me go by myself so maybe you could all say a prayer for him this week as he watches the girls.

I'm wondering when it will hit me that she is actually gone. I'm dreading that moment.

I have some catching up to do...

2008-10-25T12:59:00.007+09:00

Back in September (hangs head in shame) I attended the swimming open house at Emi and Misaki's school. They are both swiming so well, actually that was one of the things that really surprised me during our summer vacation. Misaki spent more time under the water than on top of it!

All the first graders performed a song in the water. Misaki's in the middle there somewhere.

In between I went to the gym and checked out all the things that kids had made during their summer vacation. I had forgotten to take a pictures of Emi & Misaki's crafts so I was glad I had my camera with me.

Emi made this marble maze from a kit. It was a little complicated and about halfway through she had wanted to give up but she persevered and it turned out to be a really fun toy.

Misaki made this stage with paper dolls in it. We cut out clothes from leftover material I had lying around and glued them onthe paper dolls. We also glued the curtains and stage lights on, too. It was a lot of fun.

Then it was Emi's turn.

In these next pictures she was trying to pass to the next level. She had to swim 7m without stopping.

She made it to the 5m mark. She was supposed to swim all the way to the teacher. She was disappointed but I think she passed four levels this year so she was proud of that.

I'm so proud of my girlies!

a birthday flashback

2008-10-24T00:01:00.001+09:00

Today I turn a year older and since birthdays can cause one to reminisce, I thought I would share a few memories (flashbacks, if you will) from birthdays past.

a year ago...

I was halfway through the busiest year of my entire life. But I made it!

two years ago...

I had given birth to Natsuki, our fourth little girl, two months earlier and she was finally sleeping through the night. Yeah for me!

three years ago...

Chikara and I had decided that we were finished having babies. Little did we know...

four years ago...

We had finally settled into our new house and Sakura was our little baby. I turned 30 that year and although I wasn't really thrilled about turning 30 in the few months leading up to this birthday, the day after I was totally at peace with it. Weird.

five years ago...

I had just found out I was pregnant with Sakura and I was potty-training Emi. This was also the year that I started to feel more confident with my Japanese.

ten years ago...

I had been married for almost a whole year. Although we fought a lot that year, we also learned a lot about each other in the process. The second year was a lot more fun!

fifteen years ago...

I was studying piano at Portland State University and dating my high school sweetheart. Both didn't last very long. Not completing my degree is my one regret.

twenty years ago...

We had moved to the States from Canada a few months before and I was NOT thrilled about it at all. I spent that whole year trying to be the biggest pain the ass so my parents would send me back. They never did and eventually I got over it.

twenty-five years ago...

I was nine and in fourth grade. We lived in a small coastal town and my parents started a Christian school that my brother and I attended. That following Valentine's Day I received my first ever heart-shaped box of chocolates from a boy.

thirty years ago...

My nickname was Sarah Elisabeth Bunny-Rabbit Shinness.

*I saw this at Small Notebook and I knew right away that I would use it here for my Flashback Friday that also happened to be my birthday.

Natsuki's latest phrase

2008-10-23T08:00:00.000+09:00

I have so many things that I want to write about but I just can't seem to get to the computer long enough to actually post anything. Hopefully soon...

In other news, the other day when I got Sakura and Natsuki up in the morning, Natsuki was all genki-genki but Sakura still wasn't quite awake. We went in to wake up Daddy and Natsuki cuddled right up to him and was talking away in her own special language that no one understands. I was holding Sakura and she was whining at me and I was thinking that it was going to be a long day. After a minute of this I realized that Natsuki was saying something over and over but I couldn't figure it out so I asked her.

Natsuki: ah, ah, ehhhhh. ah, ah, ehhhh.

Me: Natsuki, what are you saying?

Sakura: (taking a break from the whining) She's saying "What The Heck". (resumes whining)

Natsuki: wa, ah, ehhhhck. wa, ah, ehhhhck.

Oh my goodness. I know she learned this from Misaki who picked it up when we went home this summer. Fortunately no one here knows what she's saying so I don't have to worry about offending anyone. Although later in the evening when I asked Natsuki to repeat it for Chikara, he was a little offended. It's pretty cute, though.

Apple!

2008-10-18T13:24:00.003+09:00

Today I had to take Sakura for a "test" at the preschool she's going to go to in April. The test is really simple and is mostly to see if they can understand questions asked and then answer them and basic words. I was worried that she would be too shy or burst into tears but she was very calm and focused (unusual for her!).

I have to share one cute moment from her test.

referring to a page of fruit...
Teacher: ringo wa dore? (where are the apples?)
Sakura: ...
Teacher: ringo wa?
Sakura: ... apple!
Teacher: suteki (that's cool) said with a little awe in her voice

Yes, for the first part she kept answering the questions in English. The teachers (and other moms in the room) were totally impressed with her pronunciation. Eventually she realized the teacher was looking for her answers in Japanese so she switched over but it was pretty cute!

a Misaki flashback

2008-10-17T08:00:00.000+09:00

This is Misaki on her first day of preschool. She had just turned 4 two months earlier and I was so nervous. I had no idea how she would do. Would she pay attention to the teacher? Would she follow instructions? Would she make friends? Would she enjoy herself? Would she be able to tell me what she did all day? Of course all my worrying was a complete waste of time. She did great all through those two years of preschool and she's turned into a spectacular first grader.

Basically this is how Misaki handles life: Nonchalantly with the occasional outburst of emotion.

PS Can you see Sakura to the left of Misaki? She was almost 2 at the time. What a cutie-pie!

our wedding day

2008-10-10T00:20:00.003+09:00

Yes, it's Flashback Friday again. This is one of my favorite pictures from our wedding. A friend took it while we were watching some of our guests sing and dance for us (seriously!).

Anyways, this picture reminds me of how perfect our wedding day was and how happy I am that I married Chikara.

darn the rain

2008-10-05T07:28:00.000+09:00

Emi and Misaki's sports day got rained out this morning. Poo.

first grade

2008-10-03T08:00:00.000+09:00

Another flashback! This time to my first grade class picture. Can you guess which is me?

That's right, front row, far right. The only little girl with one knee up. The day we received our pictures, a few other girls in my class took the picture and somehow marked an indentation of a check over all the girls except me. Over my head was an "X". They said they had gotten "this" picture directly from the photographer and he had marked it himself. "Didn't I feel bad that I had wrecked the picture?" They actually said that to me. Amazingly, this is not a sad story for me. I just shrugged my shoulders and walked away thinking, "Girls are dumb". I didn't even hate them or feel sad that they did that. I think this was an early indicator of my ability to block stupid people and their stupid comments out of my life! I wonder if I ever told my parents about that day?

my vacation is officially over

2008-10-01T17:34:00.005+09:00

The cool weather has finally pushed me out of vacation mode. Actually I feel like for the last few months I've been on an "idea-search" trying to find answers to different changes we want to make in our lives. Kind of like being in a cocoon (mentally at least), preparing for what kind of butterfly I want to become. But a lot of these ideas have come together and Chikara and I have started talking through some of them so I feel like I'm starting to break out of that cocoon and will soon be able to take action.

As part of the "taking action", Sakura and I sat down today and made a few more videos for her blog. We posted the first one today and the other two are scheduled to appear over the next weeks. It's amazing how many hits her blog gets every week, even during the two months we didn't post anything new. I guess her fan base is pretty solid!!! Thank you!

Is Fall finally here?

2008-09-29T11:10:00.002+09:00

It's cold today! I'm actually wearing a sweater. I better not get my hopes up since there will probably be a few more hot days but I'm sure I'll be able to breathe a sigh of relief when my next electricity bill comes!

preschool Emi

2008-09-26T08:00:00.001+09:00

This is 5-year-old Emi on her first day of swim class at her preschool. She's the one on the far left squinting up at the sky. I didn't actually take this picture, the school always hires a professional photographer for school events so I purchase this one from them.

Chikara and I love this picture of her. She's so little and proper (both hands clasped in front of her) but she's also curious about everything around her. I have to say that except for her size, not much has changed!

personal finance

2008-09-25T13:43:00.004+09:00

This week Lulu over at Cherry Blossom Adventures wrote a very honest post about her lack of success in financial matters. A lot of people commented and shared their own issues with personal finance, too, which really surprised Lulu. She really thought she was the only one struggling but I have to say that I wasn't surprised at all. I know that everyone struggles in some way with their money.

At least, I know we do. There have been different struggles at different times in our lives. We have regrets that we didn't do more with our money when we were first married. We cannot believe that we survived those first few years after we moved to Japan. We are constantly thankful for our house and Chikara's current job. But the struggle that stands before us now is saving. I mean serious savings. We do really good in most other areas of our finances and we can save for our trips home and pay for them in cash but the trip takes up most of our savings. I know that I could say here that having four kids on one and a quarter incomes is difficult at the best of times so I shouldn't be so hard on myself but I KNOW that we can do better. We have to and we want to.

Over the last two or so years I have been searching the Internet for good information about personal finance. I have found the Money section of MSN to be overflowing with practical advice and recently I discovered The Simple Dollar, the blog of a man who has spent the last two years digging himself out of a huge financial hole. His story is very inspirational while still being relatable.

So for the next six months we are going to try something new. It's called the 60% Solution Budget. The basic idea is that you spend 60% of your monthly income on necessities: mortgage/rent, groceries, gas, utilities, etc. The other 40% is divided up into four categories: retirement, long-term savings, irregular expenses and fun money. I really feel like this plan covers all of our desires for our money. For fun, on top of that, we're also going to throw into a jar any 500yen coin that comes into our hand and use that to help fund our vacations. I'm going to keep track of it all on Microsoft Money (which I purchased online for $40 last year when it was on sale). I decided not to keep track of the 60% part since we work in cash and I know each week when the money is gone and also where it went.

Although I'm excited about saving for retirement and long-term goals, the reason we really decided to go with this is the plan for irregular expenses and fun money. This is the part that usually caused our carefully planned budgets to fall apart. You know, stuff you didn't see coming or forgot about. For example, next month we have to pay the 50,000yen ($500) application fee so Sakura can go to preschool next year and we're also all going to Tokyo for the Passion Conference which will be about 70,000yen. Both of these are expenses we both agreed on so there's no guilt there but stuff like this would usually bust our budget and then I'd get frustrated, give up for a month or two and then try again.

Another thing that frustrates me about trying to do all of this in Japan is the lack of information and services. For example, no one I know has heard of automatic transfers (a designated amount of money is automatically transferred into savings on payday). The interest rates for savings accounts and certified deposits are a joke (the interest for 300,000yen ($30,000) in a 5-year CD is 0.65%) and people are genuinely freaked out about investing. I want to find out more about what type of retirement plans are available but so far everyone says they just save cash in a very low-interest account. We have a life insurance policy and if Chikara were to die, the loan on our house would go to zero but I've never heard of a 401(k) or RSP type of plan to be a part of. Admittedly I'm just starting to look into this and maybe I'm looking in the wrong places but if all of this is possible then it's very well hidden.

I will probably update on our progress every few months and I hope that besides saving money, I'll be able to learn something through this process. I encourage you to click on the links if you're interesting in reading more on personal finance. There's a lot of great information out there!

the fridge: before and after

2008-09-24T15:28:00.003+09:00

before shopping:

after shopping:

That should hold us for a week!

me!

2008-09-21T08:00:00.001+09:00

On Thursday nights my in-laws come and take the older three girls out for the evening so it's just me and Natsuki. I look forward to this time because Natsuki is really relaxed and playful. This last Thursday as I finished dinner I turned to her and said, "Are you ready for dinner?". She was standing by the couch and she said yes, but then she put her hand straight up in the air and said "Me!". I laughed since obviously there was only her but she wouldn't come until I acknowledged her answer. I've got another strong little girlie on my hands!

coffee break

2008-09-20T08:00:00.001+09:00

So I successfully quit drinking coffee except that, well, I wasn't as satisfactory as I hoped it would be. Actually, it was boring. I looked forward to Sunday afternoons when I could get a cup of coffee without feeling guilty! I tried a lot of other drinks and I found that I liked grape juice the best but it's not sold in any supermarkets in my neighborhood so that was no help.

Someone had mentioned on my last post that they enjoyed a cup of coffee as a reward for chores being done and I realized that that might be the balance I was looking for. So I switched "coffee plans" last week and not only do I get to enjoy coffee again, but I'm getting a lot of housework done, too! I'm hoping that since I end up drinking my coffee at different times of the day (and some lazy days, I get no coffee) that I won't get hooked again and can avoid the headaches. Time will tell.

father/daughter flashback

2008-09-19T08:00:00.002+09:00

Flashback Friday 2:

This is one of my very favorite pictures of Chikara being a daddy. At the time, Chikara was working at his old job and he was so busy that he didn't get to spend a lot of time with the kids, but on this one occasion, he took Emi with him on the train to a practice and she was so excited. You can see that she's got her bag, her favorite shoes and the hugest smile. She's only 3 but she knows that this is a special moment.

I hope that she always remembers that spending time with Daddy is special.

Flashback Friday!

2008-09-12T12:07:00.005+09:00

Welcome to the new corner of my blog: Flashback Friday!

This picture was taken right before we moved to Japan in August 2001, which means we've been in Japan for seven whole years now! Isn't Emi just adorable in this picture with her chubby cheeks and big eyes? I know I look a little tired but I had just found I was pregnant! Surprise!

Anyways, seven years later, I can honestly say we made the right decision. Here's to seven more years!

story time

2008-09-05T08:36:00.006+09:00

I'm not sure exactly how it got started but on Monday night after dinner, the six of us sat around the table and told stories to each other for 40 minutes or so. I think Emi asked us to tell a funny story from when we were little so we told a couple of Chikara's funny stories and then Emi told a story and then Misaki and then Sakura and even Natsuki told us a story. It was hysterical and it just went on and on. Some of the girl's stories made no sense at all and Misaki went on with one story for a good ten minutes and we had no idea what she was talking about! Natsuki's story was hysterical because she kept making sounds and faces to go along with it. I sure wish we knew what she was trying to say.

It was a such a spontaneous, special time and I kept thinking that I should get out the video camera but I knew that if I did, they would stop, so I just decided to enjoy it and write about it later. But it was one of those times where I wished our life was a reality TV show so that it could've been caught on camera.

In other news (that's probably only of interest to me), I finally got rid of the washlet on our 2nd floor toilet. Ever since we moved into this house 4 years ago I wanted to throw it away but I could never come up with a good alternative. A new washlet was too expensive, especially since we don't ever use the washlet function, but if I bought a regular toilet seat we would freeze our butts off in the winter time so I kept giving up. Finally I discovered a warmlet at our local home store. It was only 50 bucks and it does the warming thing in the winter so it was perfect. I measured our toilet twice and went and looked at the warmlet in the store about 10 times before I actually bought it!

The dumb thing was that after I loosened the bolts that hold the washlet on I realized that the washlet was still attached to the wall because of the water connection. I just couldn't believe that I had forgotten about that. I tried to turn off the water to the washlet but the valve wouldn't move. Chikara was a little ticked off with me but he sweetly called his dad for advice. His dad is also sweet so although it was almost 10pm, he came over and helped me finish the job!

So now the new warmlet is on, the toilet smells MUCH better and I am very happy. And I have the sweetest, cutest kids in the whole wide world.

with the best of intentions

2008-09-04T09:19:00.005+09:00

For some reason all I can think of is redecorating Sakura & Natsuki's bedroom. I know in my brain somewhere that there is too much going this month and that I need to put it off until October if there is going to be any chance of actually completing the project in a reasonable amount of time. You know, so it doesn't drag on for months and months.

BUT, Ikea came out with their 2009 catalogue. Drat.

AND, there's way cute stuff all over it. Double drat.

So all of my good intentions went down the drain and I perused the catalogue for ideas for their room and guess what? I found exactly the inspiration I was looking for. I have been thinking about decorating their room like it's a garden. I'm going to paint the walls a soft yellow and then paint grass and flowers (free hand - yikes!) around the bottom 1/3 of the walls in the play area part (not all the way around the room) but I needed something to bring it together and make it seem garden-y.

Voila!

Isn't this too cute?! It's frog prince and princess dancing!

This duvet cover is more adorable when you see it in real life. I actually didn't like this just from the picture but when I saw it at Ikea, it was perfect.

These curtains look like a different green but, again, when I saw them at Ikea, they're exactly the same. Also, the bottom seam is unfinished so you can adjust it to any length and it's so long (250cm) that I'll be able to use one set for both windows! Yeah for me!

Last, but not least, is this adorable wall pocket. It's 130cm long so I'm guessing the pockets are really big, which is why I want it. I don't know if you can see but the frog has a crown!

So I talked my husband into going to Ikea on Monday after the girls got home from school to get all of this wonderful stuff before it goes out of stock. Glad I went when I did because the wall pocket was already sold out although they'll get more stock eventually. I was able to get everything else I wanted plus we finally picked out a mirror for Emi and Misaki's room. As soon as I get that up, I'll post pictures of their room.

Now that I have made those purchases, hopefully I'll be able to control myself for the next month! Wish me luck!

Thank the Lord for elementary school

2008-09-01T09:25:00.003+09:00

The font needs to be bigger than this so you know how I really feel but...

Woo-hoo!!!

Emi and Misaki went back to school this morning and although today they only have classes until 10:30, it is still a wonderful feeling! Due to rainy weather, colds, ear infections and a general lack of space, the last few weeks and especially last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were almost torture, for all of us, not just me. Right now, Sakura and Natsuki are playing so quietly together that this morning feels positively heavenly.

Hooray for Back-To-School!

one year ago and now

2008-08-28T10:37:00.004+09:00

Emi today

Emi one year ago

Misaki today

Misaki one year ago

Sakura today

Sakura one year ago

Natsuki today

Natsuki one year ago

coffee

2008-08-25T23:53:00.004+09:00

I'm trying to stop drinking coffee. Not alltogether, but every morning and every afternoon, which has been my habit for the last few years. Especially with babies and early morning school schedules and the likes, I always needed that morning caffeine boost to keep me going. Eventually I also added an afternoon caffeine "chaser" to help me get through those last few hours until the kids bedtimes.

A few months ago, though, we were in a hurry one morning and I didn't get my morning coffee. By the time we got to church my head was pounding and, wouldn't you know it, I had no Tylenol with me. I tried to wait until lunchtime but halfway through the service I begged Chikara to go to the vending machine and buy me a coffee. Within 10 minutes my headache was gone. Somehow, I was a little embaressed by the whole experience.

Then when we were in Canada, I was never sure if mom was making real coffee or decaf coffee so I got a few headaches then, too. The headaches made me stop and think about if the whole morning and afternoon coffee routine is really necessary anymore. Generally the kids sleep through the night. My mornings are way less rushed than they used to be. My energy levels have returned to normal since giving birth to Natsuki. Hmmm, maybe it's not necessary after all.

So, here I am, two weeks into my break from my coffee routine. I had headaches on and off the first week but now I don't feel any difference. I also don't feel tired or sluggish like I was afraid I would. Actually my biggest problem is that I don't know what *to* drink in the mornings. Tea seems like a poor substitute (sorry to all tea lovers) and water seems boring. Juice seems childish and milk is just weird tasting. A few days in a row I would get to 10am and my throat would be totally dry and I couldn't figure it out. I've been drinking water but just in the mornings it's not very appealing. This is a weird problem I didn't anticipate.

I did have coffee on Sunday afternoon with my friends and another day when a friend came to visit so now I guess I'm a social coffee drinker instead of a serial coffee drinker!

it took awhile...

2008-08-22T11:51:00.004+09:00

...but I finally caught up with all of the blogs I read on bloglines. It was daunting. So many of my friends have been busy with fun summer activities and they actually wrote about it and that made me want to read every single word that was written. So I did. I read every single word and I am now inspired to be more creative and fun. I love the Internet!

FYI: My new favorite blog is Design Mom. I don't know how she has the time to do what she does.

Also, my husband organized all of the pictures taken during our trip (1300!) and I found a few cute ones.

Natsuki playing with Maggie

Natsuki wearing my backpack

Emi, Misaki & Sakura trying to suck jello through a straw

Natsuki trying to put up with a hug from Sakura

That's all for now!

and we're back

2008-08-20T20:57:00.004+09:00

We are home. Yes, I wrote that correctly. As much as we love being in Canada and the States and being with our family and friends, it's just not home anymore and we were all very happy to get on the plane and return to Japan.

Of course the first order of business after returning was to get over jetlag. The first night we slept from 3pm to 3am. The second night we slept from 6pm to 5am. The third night we slept from 7pm to 6am. The fourth night we slept from 8pm to 7am which in my books is "over" jetlag. I think this was easily the fastest we've ever been able to do that. The girls were very cooperative and we also had a lot going on that weekend at our church so all of that helped but even then, I was very surprised with how easy it was. Travelling without a baby makes a huge difference. I even unpacked our suitcases that first morning which is something I've never been able to do before.

Natsuki developed a fever yesterday that continued today. She threw up once yesterday but except for an increase in whining, she seems to be fine so I'm just keeping an eye on her. I think that all of the time change has just been a lot for her little body.

After seeing our family pictures, many of you asked how we could pick a favorite. And the answer is that we couldn't! Katie did such a wonderful job of capturing the personalities of the girls and we just wanted to buy everything and take it home with us. But we needed to exercise some restraint so we ended up purchasing a lot of 4x6's since there are a lot candid-type shots that we really loved. If you look at the slideshow a few times in a row you'll notice that there are lot of pictures of Emi, Misaki & Sakura and then a lot of Natsuki by herself. It was really hard to get her to cooperate so the picture of the girls laying on the ground is definitely one of my favorites. Anyways, now that I'm home and I've had a chance to look through them again, I may have to order a few more!!!

And Maria, Misaki did finally lose her front tooth and she looks like a hockey player that smacked in the face by a puck!!! I'm trying to get a picture of her to share here since it is quite hysterical.

That's all for now.

what could be better

2008-08-13T09:21:00.003+09:00

This afternoon I spent an hour sitting at the nook in my mother's kitchen reading a book while I watched my girlies playing peacefully in the backyard in their barefeet. It was heavenly!

family pictures!

2008-08-09T05:52:00.002+09:00

We did it! We took family pictures (twice, actually) and they turned out so awesome. Katie, our photographer, did a great job. She was so patient, especially since Natsuki tried to boycott the photoshoot alltogether. Oh, she is so being a 2-year-old right now. But Katie is such a professional that when we had our viewing it looked like Natsuki was a perfect angel in all of the pictures. I was very impressed.

So please enjoy the slideshow that Katie put together for us.

shucking corn

2008-08-08T10:12:00.003+09:00

cousins

2008-07-31T08:23:00.003+09:00

barefeet in the grass

2008-07-27T11:32:00.001+09:00

we arrived safe and sound

2008-07-26T05:12:00.003+09:00

We survived the trip! The girls did so well and the airport in Taipei was awesome. They had huge playstructures for the kids to play on and there was a Starbucks and a Subway Sandwiches and I could pay in US Dollars and they gave me US Dollars back in change. Really except for the sheer amount of TIME (an entire 24 hours), the trip could not have gone better.

Here's some pics from the trip.

Just to prove that we have actually completed the trip, here the girls are having breakfast outside with Grampy!

Sakura's blog

2008-07-18T22:22:00.003+09:00

I posted a new song on Sakura's blog. We have been having so much fun together picking songs, recording them and then watching the video clips on her blog. She totally knows that this is a special thing just for her and she loves to ask her sisters if they've seen her "computer". I'm proud of her sisters for being genuinely excited for her.

For those of you who check her blog, we probably won't do any new songs until September when the summer break is over. I would really like to say thanks for your comments and encouragements to Sakura. It's hard to say if she realizes that people all over the world see her singing but for sure she enjoys it when I read the comments to her!

new favorite picture

2008-07-18T08:48:00.001+09:00

five more days!

2008-07-17T08:08:00.004+09:00

I'm surprised we haven't spontaneously combusted from an overabundance of excitement over here.

I've got my lists going but they're not as long as it seems they should be so I'm nervous that I've forgotten something.

Emi has written two lists: one list of stuff she wants to bring and one list of activities she wants to do in Canada. On the to do list, every third one is "play outside". I had to make her wait until Friday to start packing her carry-on and we're not leaving until Tuesday!

Misaki doesn't have a list but she reminds me everyday that I promised that I would put the batteries back in their Tamagotchi so they can play with them on the trip.

Sakura keeps asking me if she can bring "stuff". The answer to that is "yes" and "no".

Natsuki is so cute and fun right now and I'm afraid she's going to turn into a cranky two-year-old before we get there and everyone will miss out on her cuteness and funness. I probably shouldn't worry about this...

Also, can anybody help me? I'm trying to find a portable internet device for Chikara while we're on vacation. When we're at my parents house, it's no problem, but when we go camping he still needs to be able to work a few hours every day (my concession to his being able to come). His computer (Dell) already has a wireless internet connection built into it so I just need to find a . . . what? I have no idea what this is called. A few months ago he travelled in Japan to a conference which was in the middle of nowhere so he rented a satellite internet connection thingy that was a card with an antenna that just hooked into his computer. Does anyone know what this is actually called? What do business people use when they travel overseas? Help!

homesickness

2008-07-15T08:34:00.002+09:00

Short of fleeing to the closest airport, whipping out your credit card and paying an enormous fee for airline ticket that would take you home RIGHT NOW, how do you handle the inevitable and sometimes unbearable feelings of homesickness?

Yes, we're going home next week but we probably won't be able to take a trip home next year due to the rising costs of the fuel surcharge and also just the fact that there is six of us! I know during the times of "no trip home in the near future" that homesickness will crash over me unbidden and then I will do what I always do. Buy a book. Yes, this is my ultimate cure for homesickness. Somehow buying a book, either a new one or a golden oldie that I love and want to pass onto my children, and sitting down to read it helps me create a little Canadian/American bubble that I can climb into and relax in for awhile. It never fails.

Also, I count my blessing. Life in Japan has gotten so much easier to live in the past seven years. There's Costco, FBC, Expat Express, Ikea, etc. We have internet access and cheap long distance rates. I created a blog and thereby made a lot of new friends who understand exactly what I'm going through. I've learned how to speak Japanese and I've made awesome Japanese friends. Well, the list goes on and on but stopping to take a moment to focus on the positives in my life make the negatives a little bit more bearable.

So, what is your "cure" for homesickness? I know a few ladies who are in the throes of homesickness and they might appreciate a few new ideas on how to dig themselves out!

family pictures

2008-07-12T09:47:00.006+09:00

I need some advice! One thing we're doing when we go home is have family pictures taken. A friend of ours from college has her own studio. I've been following her blog for the past year and almost from the beggining I knew that I wanted her to take pictures of us. Well, you can see for yourself. Her name is Katie Kelly and this is her blog, her new blog, her website and her slideshows (this is my brother and his family). I love how natural her pictures feel. She seems to really capture the spirit of the moment and that's exactly what I was looking for. She does have a studio but Chikara and I miss the greenery of Portland so we've decided to have our session outside.

Now that you've seen what she's capable of, this is my question. I was thinking of buying us new casual clothes in a coordinating color scheme for the pictures but the other day I was looking through our old pictures and found ones of the girls in their summer kimonos and I realized that I would love to have a few pictures of the Japanese side of us, too. Our session is only 90 minutes long so I don't want to waste too much time getting changed. Maybe if I took the girls to the session already dressed up in their yukatas, then we could change easily into casual clothes and finish the session with our family pictures. Do you think it would be too much of a hassle? Do you think it would waste too much time?

I already have yukatas for the girls in all of their sizes so it would just be a matter of finding space to bring them. Probably the person I should really be asking is Katie.

Last year's Star Festival picture:

Star Festival picture from two years ago:

In addition to the question of yukatas or no yukatas I was also wondering if anyone has good ideas for a color scheme for our family outfits, too. I am eagerly awaiting your thoughts and ideas!

classic Misaki

2008-07-10T23:47:00.003+09:00

Today Misaki had swimming class at school so when she left this morning she took her pool bag with her. However, when she came back she didn't have her pool bag in her hands. When I asked her where her pool stuff was, she stopped for a second, looked up thoughtfully and then grimaced and said she must've forgotten it. Great, I'm thinking, all that wet stuff sitting overnight is going to get all musty and moldy. Why, oh why, does she do this?

It was a hot day and they were pretty sweaty so I let them sit down with a popsicle to cool down before they did their homework. Once both their popsicles were gone I reminded them to get out their homework and as Misaki opened her bag, she suddenly exclaimed and then giggled. Her pool bag was inside her school bag. She pulled it out with a slightly embarrassed but mostly relieved look on her face. "Oh", she said, "I forgot".

How is it possible that she could forget this in the short ten minutes it takes to leave her classroom and get all the home. Boggles the mind.

just a little embarrassing

2008-07-09T23:08:00.003+09:00

I wrote two weeks ago about a busy day that we had running errands. The third errand on that day was to go to a friend's house and try to get Natsuki infected with chicken pox. Knowing that two weeks of incubation had passed I was on the lookout for poxes. On Saturday night it seemed like Natsuki had a few pox-y looking type marks on her face and Sunday morning when she woke up they were still there and she had a low-grade fever so I decided to be safe and keep her home from church. Usually when we need to split up the kids I'll take Natsuki & Sakura and Chikara will take Emi & Misaki (or vice versa) but there was no reason for Sakura to stay home so Chikara decided to take all three pox-free children to church. He was a little nervous since he had a meeting in the afternoon but the girls behaved very well for him.

Natsuki and I had a lovely, quiet time at home. I just sat on the couch and she ran around and made me "food" and we did puzzles and generally had nice time. I kept checking her body for more signs of chicken pox but by the time I put her down for her nap, nothing more had materialized. She had a fabulous 3-hour nap (and so did I) and right after we woke up Chikara called to say they were on their way back home. Natsuki had no new poxes so we decided to risk going out for dinner because we needed to take some much-needed Tylenol to a friend's house.

Then on Monday there were still no more poxes.

Tuesday. No poxes.

Hmmmm . . . maybe she doesn't have chicken pox after all. The timing of whatever was on her face and her fever was amazingly coincidental, though. I'm going to be a little embarrassed when I go church on Sunday and have to tell this story a million times over and over again. Sigh.

Well, on the bright side, I don't have to deal with an itchy, cranky baby for the next week and I don't have to worry about leftover scars preventing us from getting on the plane and going to Canada.

Only two more weeks! Yeah!

and we all breathed a sigh of relief...

2008-07-09T10:53:00.002+09:00

Two weeks ago we blew a fuse in our car (how?) and suddenly our stereo wouldn't work. I know it's an easy thing to fix but these small details are the type of thing that we are not good at actually getting around to.

Maybe I should share here that our family loves music. We always have a CD playing in the background when we're at home or in the car. If there's not a CD on then we're singing. All of us. All six of us at one time, singing the same song at the top of our lungs. It's awesome and Chikara and I could not be more thrilled about this. Once I got Chikara his iPod for his birthday, it totally expanded our music library and we were able to introduce the girls to The Barenaked Ladies' If I Had A Million Dollars and the W's The Devil Is Bad and all sorts of other songs that we had totally forgotten about. It's a good job I limited how much money we're able to use at iTunes or we'd be bankrupt by now!

So you can imagine that when our car stereo stopped working it was weird. The silence was weird. We can only sing for so long and sometimes Chikara and I need to talk instead of sing and sometimes the girls fight over which song to sing and who's allowed to sing it, etc. Finally on Monday Chikara had a window of opportunity to take the car and get it fixed. He had a huge smile on his face when he came back. That evening we had been invited to a birthday party for my best friend's son. We piled all the kids in the car at the appropriate time and started off. About two minutes into the drive I realized that we still hadn't turned on the stereo so I hit the button and the radio came on.

From the back seat I heard, said in a half-sigh: Yes.

I feel exactly the same way Emi!

as requested...

2008-07-05T22:43:00.007+09:00

We only started using a digital camera two years ago but my photos from before then are actually pretty organized so I went through and found a few favorites of the girls from when they were younger. What do you think?

Emi - 7 months

Misaki - 6 months

Me - 28th birthday, Emi - 22 months

Emi - 23 months

Emi - 2-1/2 years

Misaki - 16 months

Emi - 3 years, Misaki - 23 months

Misaki - 2 and a bit

Emi - 3-3/4 years, Misaki - 2-1/2, Sakura - 4 months

Family Picture, Chikara and I - 29 years, girls - same as above

Emi - 4 years, Misaki - almost 3 years

Oh man, that was way too much fun!

comparison pictures

2008-07-05T12:07:00.003+09:00

My mom wrote a comment on the last post that the last picture of Natsuki drinking from a cup could be any one of the girls since we've used the same high chair, same bib, same cup, etc. for all of the girls. Hmmm....

Sakura at 22 months:

Natsuki at 22 months:

Sakura's first pigtails (22 months)

Natsuki's first pigtails (also 22 months)

Seeing a pattern? Only the vacuum cleaner has changed!

picture update

2008-07-03T22:40:00.006+09:00

Would you like to see what we've been up to?

Look! All four girls participating in the same activity and being nice to each other! I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Natsuki sucking on a sucker while waiting for Emi to get her hair trimmed. She managed to get only a little sticky.

Misaki made a puppet of a girl who is dancing. Today she made a boy to go with it. I think she got her inspiration from the Princess and the Pea book I bought for Sakura's birthday.

Checking to see if her goggles fit. Swimming lessons have started at school. Twice a week both Emi and Misaki get a chance to swim without me even having to lift a finger (almost!). Emi's already starting to get tanlines on her back.

If Chikara lays down on the floor, Natsuki just can't leave him alone. Her little cheek resting on his shoulder is adorable.

A rare sisterly moment between Emi and Sakura.

I went to Emi's school for a parent "fun day". We made a kaleidescope together. Sakura stuck by my side the entire time but Natsuki ran all over the place. No fear that girl!

Emi's tomatoes! They were still green last week but today she brought home a red one.

Sakura loves her blue blankie. It's been her constant companion since she was about 3 months but finally she put enough holes in it that we had to say good-bye to it. Fortunately I did have an extra pink one so it was an easy transition.

More evidence of the holey-ness of poor blue blankie!

And last but not least a little update on the life of Natsuki.

It's amazing how quick she goes from this...

...to this! In a one minute period she can fall apart, pull herself back together and then flip out again. Never a dull moment.

Natsuki having a time out. Can you see her hands on her knees? She's so cute having a time out that I almost don't mind her being bad just so I can see her cuteness. Well, almost.

Another thing we've dealing a lot with is Natsuki's pickiness as an eater. Emi and Misaki were not picky at all but Sakura was fairly picky and now Natsuki by far is the pickiest. I've been trying more creative ways to present food so that she might be more interested but even as cute as this lunch is she still only ate the rice and then I had to cajole her into one carrot, one piece of watermelon and her meatballs. Still too much work.

On the other hand she has figured how to drink from a cup all by herself so I guess I'm not a failure in all areas!

So that's what we've been up to. My friend who had her baby breach has been freaking out a bit since she's been home. I kind of saw this coming but it's taking up most of my extra time. Her capacity for freaking out is large so my posts may be sparse for a bit.

I did buy a notebook so I can start writing lists for my upcoming trip home. Less than three weeks now!

shooting stars

2008-06-28T14:04:00.002+09:00

Yesterday on the way home from the mall I had this conversation with Emi:

Emi: Mom, is there really such a thing as nagareboshi (shooting star)?

Me: Yes.

Emi: Really?

Me: Yes.

Emi: When do they come, like Easter or Christmas?

Me: I'm not really sure, I think it's more like during a season like Spring or whatever. (I know, that's a dumb description)

Emi: hmmm.....

(2 minute silence)

Emi: Mom, you know what I would wish for if I saw nagareboshi?

Me: What?

Emi: A skateboard.

Me: Cool.

(five minute silence)

Emi: Mom.

Me: Yeah.

Emi: You know what if I would wish for if I saw another nagareboshi?

Me: What?

Emi: No school!

busy day

2008-06-23T22:58:00.005+09:00

Today after the girls came home from school we had three errands to do.

The first was to pick up Misaki's passport from the passport center in downtown Osaka.

The second was to go and visit our friends who just had their second baby this morning. The baby was breach, which they knew beforehand, but their doctor wanted to try a natural birth first instead of going with a C-section and they were happy to go along with it. Their little boy is sooooooooo cute. It almost makes me want to have another one. Almost.

The third was to go over to our other friends house and see if their son could infect Natsuki with chicken pox. Emi, Misaki and Sakura had chicken pox two and a half years ago and although I went back and forth about whether or not this was a good idea, I don't want to be worrying about her getting it once she gets into school. We don't leave for Canada for another month and there's not much going on before that so I figured now is as good a time as any. We'll see if we were successful in two weeks!

We left our house around 3:30pm and we didn't get back home until 9:30pm. That's how long it takes to run those three errands in Osaka, in case you're wondering.

Also... Sakura-isms:

sakana butsuri = sakanatsuri (fishing)
nekk = next as in "Nekk is my turn"

Plus she keeps finishing every sentence with, "because I'm four". Yeah, it's already annoying and she's only been four for a week now!

Sakura's 4th Birthday and Father's Day

2008-06-19T09:51:00.007+09:00

This last weekend was a very busy weekend for us. I don't remember this happening before but Sakura's birthday (the 14th) and Father's Day were on the same weekend. It kind of felt like Misaki's birthday which is the same day as Valentine's Day. It's hard to celebrate both so VD kind of takes a backseat but Father's Day is very important and we cannot forget to say how much we appreciate our Daddys so we did our best to fit them both in.

Chikara had to stay overnight at the church on Saturday night for a special youth band practice. Usually when we go to drop him off we just grab something to eat at McDonald's but since it was Sakura's birthday and the girls wouldn't see Chikara in the morning, I decided that we should go to sushi instead. We were planning a family birthday party for Sakura on Sunday night but I wanted to give her at least one present on her actual birthday. When we had finished our dinner, I gave Sakura her present to open. For months she has been asking for a pink dress for summer and I found some cute, inexpensive summer dresses for her. Not because I'm cheap but I know that she'll want to wear them outside to play with her friends and they'll get all dirty and I want to be OK with that! She was soooooo excited, as you can see.

I love it when the present we bought turns out to be exactly what they wanted. I told her that she could pick one of her dresses to wear to church the next day, which made her even more excited. A funny note here, there are actually 4 other summer dresses in the closet in her size but NONE of them were pink. Now she literally has a dress for every day of the week!

After Sakura had finished opening her present, Chikara thought that we were ready to go but the girls and I surprised him by giving him his Father's Day gift, too. Basically there was absolutely no time on Sunday to do anything special for him so this was a nice substitute. During the week the girls had made cards for him and then I got him a docking speaker thingy for his iPod (which he loves by the way). He was so surprised by all of it. He knew Father's Day was going to be busy so I think he was expecting nothing. Ha, ha! He should remember that girls are sneaky!

Doesn't he look so proud? After that we took him to the church and hung out for a bit and then the girls and I went home and I put them to bed. My goal for the evening was to tidy up the house, make cupcakes and wrap the rest of Sakura's presents for the next day but I actually only baked the cupcakes and finished watching the first season of 30 Rock that my mom had brought for me when she came in February. I've been saving it for a time when there wasn't anything on TV and Chikara wasn't around (so I can concentrate) and this was perfect. I stayed up way too late but it was a lot of fun. Also, usually I bake a chocolate cake for all the birthdays in our family but I wanted to do something in keeping with our "pink" theme so I made cupcakes from the "Confetti Cake" mix from Betty Crocker and I ordered Strawberry Mist frosting from Expat Express. I thought it would turn it out too sweet or maybe taste really gross but they were awesome. Even Chikara liked them. I might have to try that again sometime!

On Sunday morning I got all the girls up, got ready and went to church. After the service, three of my friends and I went out for lunch together to celebrate two of their birthdays. I haven't been out with friends like that for quite a long time. One of the birthday girls is having her second baby next week so it was perfect timing. We had the waitress take a picture and I am motivated once again to exercise! Now that the weather has heated up, I was wearing a sleeveless top and the sight wasn't very pretty. Yikes! Anyways, all of our husbands watched all of our kids at church during the 3 hours that we were gone (8 kids among 4 husbands) so we really relaxed and just enjoyed the fellowship time. We'll be doing that again very soon!

Once we got back to church, it was time to go home and get ready for Sakura's birthday party! Chikara tidied up the house (thank you sweetie) while I finished wrapping Sakura's presents and iced the cupcakes. We went out to eat dinner with Chikara's parents and then we all came back to our house for cake and presents. Sakura got lots of wonderful girlie pink things including her own high-heel sandals (well a 1/2 inch heel). She ooh'd and aah'd over every gift and actually she's exclaimed over and over since then about how happy she is about all of her gifts. Such a little girlie-girl!

Personally I was most excited about this present for Sakura. I'm always looking for things that I can buy for the girls that can become keepsakes, maybe something they can pass onto their own girls one day. I found this book through Dooce and when I read more about it on Amazon, I knew it was exactly what I was looking for. The day we got it in the mail, I sat down and read it to Chikara. About halfway through I stopped because maybe he thought it was silly but he was enjoying it, too. The writing is so creative and a little on the sarcastic side (which the Canadian part of me loves). For example, near the end of the book there's a line where the Prince asks the Princess to marry him and the next sentence is, "And that's the thing about Princes, they always know all the right questions to ask". Writing like that makes me look forward to storytime, too.

It had been a long, wonderful day and everyone was excited to get into bed. Chikara and I, of course, stayed up and watched the end of the Indiana Jones movie on TV. They're showing all three Indiana Jones movies on TV as part of the publicity for the fourth movie which comes out on Saturday. I am desperately trying to figure out how to get some babysitting so Chikara and I can go and see it together.

Two final pictures to end with. Now that Natsuki has figured out how cameras work (first you take the picture, *then* you can see it on the screen), picture-taking has become a near painless experience.

Also, two Dads and the birthday girl.

I should say here that in all of the busyness of the day I didn't get to call my dad. I just felt so awful because I love my Daddy so much but when I called him the next day, he was sweet and told me that he only cried a little bit. I'll see you soon, Daddy.

one of those days

2008-06-18T13:31:00.002+09:00

Have you ever had one of those days where it seems like your self-confidence is being attacked left and right? Yesterday was like that for me. It wasn't even about the kids or my skills as a mother but more about me, Sarah, the woman. I almost cried even. I just felt awkward in everything I did, especially when speaking Japanese, and I just wanted to throw in the towel and go home, eat chocolate and watch a movie. Which I didn't do since I'm trying to be more careful with what I'm eating. Sigh. Once I got home I realized that I'm probably just experiencing some PMS and that none of the stuff that happened was a big deal except to me so I decided to just let it go. But it sucked.

Actually the story above does show a recent change in my personal life: the ability to think. Or maybe, more precisely, the return of my ability to think since giving birth to Natsuki and all of her sisters. You know when you're pregnant and you forget what you're talking about midstream or after you've given birth and you're just happy that you were able to brush your teeth that day. It seems like I've been in that space of life for a LONG TIME and I enjoyed most of it and I love my kids but the ability to reason again has been wonderful.

I should admit that I've been using most of this reasoning power on problems that are not important to anyone but me. For example, I felt like recently after I do my make-up my eyes looked droopy. Normally I just wouldn't have time to think about this but with my renewed ability to think, I actually took five whole minutes and tried my make-up a few different ways until I figured out that the way I was applying my eyeliner was the problem. So I fixed it! Obviously this is only important to me and nobody noticed and it is a silly problem but I felt so empowered by the fact that I could actually *take* five minutes *and* come up with a solution.

During the last few months I've had this same experience with a lot of trivial things that were constantly plaguing me and it was amazing to be able to solve them quickly. Just imagine how much stuff I'll be able to get done when all the girls are in school. I'm almost giddy just thinking about it.

all she can say

2008-06-12T11:04:00.005+09:00

Natsuki's new favorite word: "this"

It's amazing how she can use this word for EVERYTHING. Suddenly we have no idea what she's talking about. Her pronunciation is cute, though, with her little tongue sticking out!

Also, for your viewing pleasure, Natsuki after eating refried beans ALL BY HERSELF!

I am so proud.

all kinds of new revelations

2008-06-10T10:46:00.003+09:00

Conversation with Misaki and Emi:

Misaki: I don't want to get married.

Me: OK. (I'm listening but I'm not sure where she's going with this so I'm being neutral)

Misaki: No, I don't want to get married.

Me: OK.

Misaki: (almost crying) No, I don't want to get maaaaaaarriiiiiiiiiiiiied.

Me: Why not?

Misaki: Because it hurts.

Me: What hurts? (I'm totally confused)

Misaki: I don't want to get married because then I have to have a baby and that hurts.

Me: You know, you don't have to have a baby if you get married.

Misaki: Really?

Emi: YES YOU DO (in her most incredulous voice)

Me: No, you don't. You don't HAVE to. You can decided if you want to or not.

Misaki: OK. Thanks, Mom!

Emi: That's not true. You HAVE to, you HAVE to. Are you sure? Are you teasing me?

Me: No, I'm not teasing you at all.

Emi: hmmm.... I don't know.

So basically I solved one problem and caused another one all in the same conversation. Magic.

children of two races

2008-05-29T08:09:00.002+09:00

I read this article today on MSN and found it thought-provoking as a mom of biracial children. I maybe have been a little naive in my thinking that my children would be able to embrace both of their cultures on an equal level but maybe now is the time to think about how to make that possible for them. Does anyone have any thoughts on this issue?

a breakthrough?

2008-05-26T21:10:00.005+09:00

I wrote before about Misaki's lying and it seems that we've had a breakthrough. Definitely not an ending but at least a breakthrough. I'm not sure if I handled it right but anyways...

Last weekend the girls were playing outside and Misaki came in with something in her hands that she was all excited about. When she showed me what she had it was a dangomushi (pillbug?). Now I'm not scared of those little bugs but I definitely don't want them in the house so I told Misaki to take it straight outside and that I didn't want her to bring anymore bugs into the house. As she walked out the door she said, "Oh, it's tickling my hands. You cute little dangomushi". Yes, she loves living things.

Today was a day off from school and Emi and Misaki played outside for most of the afternoon while Chikara and I did stuff around the house. By early evening most of their friends had gone home so the girls came inside. We decided to go out for dinner instead of making something. All the girls went downstairs with Chikara to get their shoes on and I gathered my bag and stuff (there's always stuff) and followed them. When I got downstairs, right away I saw some little black somethings on the ground. I went closer and realized that they were dangomushi. Five of them! Emi and Sakura were still getting their shoes on but Misaki was already in the car. I called her back and asked her straight out, "Misaki did you bring these dangomushi into the house?". I really expected her to lie since this has been the typical pattern for her. Her face screwed up into a cry and I asked her one more time and...

*deep breath*

...she said "Yes". Yes! They were magical words. Then she showed me where she had hidden the rest. Gross. At this point I wasn't sure what to do exactly. She disobeyed by bringing dangomushi into the house even though I had just told her a few days before that she was not allowed to. And she had hidden the bugs and I had just managed to find a few escapees. I knew that I should discipline her for that disobedience but I also felt like she had chosen to tell the truth which is a bigger problem that we had been working on. Gosh, parenting is hard!

In the end I didn't discipline her for the disobedience (I feel that coming back to bite me in the butt). I did tell her sternly that she had disobeyed and I wasn't happy about that and I made her take all the dangomushi back outside. But I did praise her for telling the truth and not lying. She wasn't sure if she should cry or smile. I wasn't sure if I should cry or smile, either!

While we were at dinner, she asked me why I had said that I was proud of her for not lying and I told her again that telling the truth was the right thing for her to do. I did reiterate that she had still disobeyed by bringing the bugs in but didn't she feel good when she told the truth? She said yes.

I hope this means we're turning a corner with the lying. I can't imagine that it's over and she'll never lie again but I do see the light at the end of the tunnel. Woo-hoo!

peeps

2008-05-26T13:20:00.002+09:00

This is as close as she can get...

...to saying "please".

that explains a lot

2008-05-24T21:55:00.003+09:00

I was trying to figure out why the air coming out of our air conditioner in the living room didn't seem very strong or cold.

Oh yeah. I had forgotten to clean the filters at the end of last summer.

All better. The change in the airflow is amazing. I guess now we're ready for those hot, humid Japanese summer. Yeah?

I hope nobody loses a finger

2008-05-24T11:05:00.000+09:00

Wow!

two reasons to go out and get yourself a one-year-old

2008-05-23T14:54:00.006+09:00

one:

(you can ignore the last 10 seconds)

two:

Sakura's got a blog!

2008-05-22T14:07:00.003+09:00

Lately it seems like every conversation in our house goes like this...

"Emi, good job on your Kanji, Misaki, you did such a good job with your hiragana, Natsuki, yeah, you can say a new word, Sakura, will you please BE QUIET for a moment."

Seriously, it's been like that a lot lately. I've been searching for something creative that Sakura and I can do together but is also something I haven't done with her sisters before. Something just for her because I have a feeling that no matter how hard I try, Sakura's life is always going to be like the conversation above. She just has the unenviable position of being the third born but not the last born and therefore everything she does isn't "new" and also not the most adorable since her little sister is around to take up that part. I know lots of third-borns who had to make-up for this disparity in other (read: negative) ways so I'm trying hard to avoid that as much as I can.

So without further ado (drumroll please), I would like to introduce a blog dedicated to Sakura and her favorite activities: singing and dancing!

Sakura's Songs at www.mommyinjapansakura.blogspot.com.

Every week we will post a couple of video clips of Sakura singing her favorite songs (and possibly dancing!) so if you have a few seconds to spare please go on over there and check it out. I enabled the comments section but it is a private blog so if you lose the address then you won't be able to Google it.

Also I would just like to clarify here that I know that sometimes she's singing the songs wrong (yes, even the Japanese ones) but that is part of the charm of Sakura's singing and also, try as we might, she just will not believe that maybe, possibly the song could be sung another way.

***tj-injapan - Thanks so much for your comment and question! I will write a post soon to answer your question about how to deal with a meltdown on public transportation.

saying no did the trick

2008-05-21T11:46:00.005+09:00

When we first moved to Japan Emi was 8 months old and I was 3 months pregnant with Misaki. We had decided that it would be best to live with Chikara's parents for the first few months until we could get settled. That turned out to be a good decision for more reasons than one. Yes, it helped us save money but it also gave my in-laws a close look at how we raise our children and kind of cleared the air on a number of issues. One of those issues was how we expected our children to behave in restaurants.

I can vividly remember a time when Emi was around 11 months and we went out for dinner at a nabe restaurant. You know, the restaurant with a gas burner in the middle of the table for the pot to rest on. Sigh... it sounded so yummy but I forgot that it takes awhile for the meal to be ready to eat and once it was ready Emi ate quickly and then she was bored waiting for the rest of us to eat. She was sitting in her car seat but soon she had turned to screaming and squirming and I couldn't calm her down. My MIL offered to take her for a walk around the restaurant. I wanted to say no because really I wanted to train our kids to sit through meals but I was tired so I said OK. The two of them walked right to the front of the restaurant to the little toy stand that all restaurants have. Within five minutes my MIL was back for her purse and she bought Emi a little plastic toy. Emi played with that toy for all of 1 minute before she got fussy again. Fortunately by this time we were almost done with dinner so I just held Emi and sang to her until it was time to go. On the way home I remember thinking that dinner hadn't gone too badly.

A few weeks later we went out for dinner again with my in-laws and sure enough halfway through the meal Emi was done and bored but this time she turned immediately to my MIL. She expected to be taken for a walk. Right then I had a moment of clarity. If I let Emi go then she will never learn to sit down through a meal and then the next baby (in my tummy) will not sit through a meal and the next baby that we plan to have shortly after her will never do it either. I will never want to go out for dinner because it's going to be a huge pain which means I'll always have to cook dinner. It was so clear to me it was almost like I was *in* that awful moment. So I said no to my MIL (which did not go over well) and started rummaging through my bag for something to entertain Emi. It was a lot of work on my part that evening but she did sit through the rest of the meal in a relatively calm manner although I sang "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" about a million times.

Now, I am not so far removed from reality to know that it is a lot to expect a one-year-old to sit through a 30-40 minute dinner. But I also know that I've got to start somewhere. After that dinner, I went back to the parenting books I own and called my sister-in-law and my mother to try and get some advice regarding how to go about this. After about a week I had a plan but I didn't get to use it until a few months later after Misaki was born. Chikara's parents took us out for dinner at a new restaurant we hadn't been to before. Misaki was only a couple of months old and slept through the meal but Emi was almost a year and a half and started getting bored about halfway through. I saw my MIL moving to get her so I politely said that it wasn't necessary and whisked Emi to the bathroom. I quietly told Emi that it was time to eat and that I wanted her to sit down and be happy. She said "Yes, Mommy" and we went back and sat down. I handed her a piece of bread and a toy and she sat happily and ate the bread and played with the toy. About five minutes later my in-laws asked Chikara what I had done. Had I spanked her? They weren't appalled but they were shocked by the change in her behavior in such a short time (we were only gone for a minute). So I told them what I done and everyone seemed in shock. In fact, we were all silent and happy for the rest of the meal.

Yes, there have been times where my kids have had a meltdown in a restaurant or just wouldn't cooperate. You know those days where dinner out comes at the end of a long outing or they're teething or are beginning to get sick. We've had those days, too, but in general our children know that we expect them to sit and behave and if they don't then they will have to go with me to the bathroom for a talking to. Actually I'm surprised myself that this works. I think I've only had to give a spanking once or twice at a restaurant but that was to a 3-year-old who was just outright disobeying. Mostly a little talk takes care of it. Of course we follow this up by expecting the same behavior at home and that they follow other rules as well. I think that removing them from the situation and receiving clarification from me about what is expected is what does the trick.

Flash forward six years and we still use the same procedure. On Monday night we went out to ramen for dinner. It's a restuarant we go to often so the girls know what to expect but Natsuki is the one who now needs the constant reminding. After we sat down, our waitress brought us our water and Chikara ordered our food. This restaurant just got new plastic cups with handles for the kids so Natsuki can drink by herself except that she was having a hard time so when I reached over to turn her cup around for her she flipped out because she didn't want me to touch the cup. I handed it back to her but she had already decided she was going to be mad. There were only 3 other people in the restaurant (we were having an early dinner) so I decided this was as good a time as any to let her realize that crying doesn't get her what she wants. Once she realized I wasn't going to do anything she quickly turned from crying to angry screaming so I picked her up and off we went to the bathroom. I've done this with her a few times before so it was cute to see her cry on my shoulder for 15 seconds and then look at my face to await her instructions. Seriously, she knew I was going to tell her something. I said that screaming is "no-no" and that now was time to eat and be happy (words she knows). She repeated "eat" and "happy" and then "OK" and I hugged her and then we went out. She sat right in her seat (the kind that attaches to the table) and she was all happy. I handed her back her cup and she was all smiles. As I turned to go sit down I noticed that Emi, who was sitting beside Natsuki, was straddling the bench instead of sitting up to the table so I told her to turn around. What does she do? She swings her leg over and smashes Natsuki's hand into the table. Why me? Of course Natsuki burst into tears again and Emi got all defensive ("What? You told me to do it"). Just as I was trying to decide what to do the food came. Yeah! Emi said sorry and Natsuki went back to saying "eat, eat, eat" and soon we were back on track.

We enjoyed a lovely meal together and I thought to myself that this is why I said no to my MIL six year ago. You know, so that I don't have to cook all the time!

*** I should also mention that we also try to make dinnertime with our kids a lot of fun. We really encourage sharing about what they did or what they've been thinking about lately. It's a good time for all of us to focus on each other and for the girls to listen to each other. I realized as I re-read my post that someone might get the idea that the kids sit silently around the table while we watch them waiting for a hint of bad behavior. Totally not the case.

she speaks

2008-05-17T10:20:00.007+09:00

Ever since Emi and Misaki went back to school, one of my main goals has been to work with Natsuki on her speaking skills. It's not that I'm worried or concerned about her but I noticed that she doesn't get the one-on-one time with me that the other girls did so she doesn't have a lot of words in her vocabulary. The words she does have, she says clearly and everyone can tell what they are. She also uses them at the right time and so far we always know what she's trying to tell us but I knew that if we were ever going to get past "more" and "all done" then I was going to have to try a little harder.

At first she would just laugh at me when I would repeat words over and over that I wanted her to try saying but eventually I noticed that she was trying to say them and then she could say them clearly. One day last week we were playing hide-and-seek with Sakura and I was calling out Sakura's name in a sing-song fashion while Natsuki and I searched for her. I would call out "Sa-kura" and we would hear giggling from whever Sakura was but one time I called out "Sa-kura" and all of a sudden Natsuki said "Ta-kura" in a clear immitation of me. Sakura jumped out of her hiding place and ran over to us and the three of us sat in a circle and called out Sakura's name over and over while Natsuki mimiced us. It was awesome. Here's a little sample for your enjoyment.

Of course the other little voice you hear at the end is Sakura not wanting to miss out on the fun. It almost looks like Natsuki throws her voice when I asked her to say "Daddy". The other thing I'm enjoying about Natsuki's expanding vocabulary is how excited her sisters are for her. They rejoice over every new word and ask her to repeat it ad naseum.

For posterity, I decided to write a list of all the words she can say as of today, at 1 year and 9 months.

English
Daddy
Mommy
no
more
all done
juice
Emi
Sakura
bear
baby
eat
morning (not good morning, just "morning")
up
please
ear
eye
cheek
bye-bye

Japanese
chodai (please)
ohaiyo gozaimasu (good morning)
arigato (thank you)
kawaii (cute)
ne-ne (sleep)
papa (Daddy)
mimi (ear)
oishii (yummy)
hai (yes)
moikai (one more time)
dekita (I did it!)
yatta (yeah!)

It'll be interesting to see how much this list grows over the next few months when she turns 2!

the last few weeks in pictures

2008-05-15T11:17:00.008+09:00

First, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. After reading all of the comments, I felt very encouraged and also a little relieved that this thing with Misaki can be overcome and it will pass. Maybe one day when she's a mommy and dealing with her little ones, she can come back here to be encouraged, too.

I haven't written much the last few weeks because we've been all over the place. There were a variety of national holidays and school events but from today everyone's schedules go back to normal and stay that way until summer vacation starts. I tried to take pictures along the way but I didn't always succeed so let's see what I've got.

First up, isn't Natsuki turning into a little girl. She had a growth spurt and she's jumping, running and talking up a storm. She's also fighting with her sisters and pulling their hair, etc., but then the next second she's smiling, dancing and singing so we've got quite the rollercoaster of emotions going on over here. I trimmed her hair in the back now that her bald spot has grown out and maybe that's what's contributed to the change in her look.

The first holiday that came up was just one Tuesday in the middle of the week at the end of April. I had decided to still teach my English classes that day so the night before, after dinner, we went out for ice cream and a walk. It was almost too cold so we took refuge in a Starbucks. The girls were on a sugar high from their ice cream and hyper since it was past their bedtime so on the whole, I'm not sure that going out was the best idea but we wanted to start off Golden Week with a little something special so in the end, I was glad we went out. Here's the girls hogging up all the comfy chairs at Starbucks.

The first weekend in May was the second half of our Golden Week vacation. My pastor's wife had asked if I would sing a solo with her gospel choir for the Takatsuki Jazz Street Festival so that was what we spent Saturday doing. This next picture is mostly for my mom.

Yes, that's me in the middle singing. The festival is really cool. They have over 40 different sites, some in parks, some in bars or restaurants, some at shopping centers and open-air shopping centers and then different jazz or gospel groups sign up to participate and are assigned an area and a time. Basically for two days you can just walk around this 1 square mile and listen to jazz or gospel all day long. We wish we could have taken more time but it wasn't really fair to the kids. I took this picture of Emi while we were having some ice cream (it was hot that day) and listening to a band. They played some Eric Clapton and some James Taylor so it's hard to say if they were trying to be jazz or rock. Anyways, I love this picture of her.

The next day was church and then in the afternoon we got together with one group of friends and then in the evening we got together with another group of friends. Needless to say we were exhausted by the time Sunday was over. We had planned to go to Kobe on Monday but the weather looked less than promising and everyone was so tired that I knew it would end up being not fun at all so we decided to take a relaxing day at home. This doesn't usually work because it's rare that all of us are tired enough on the same day but this day was perfect. Everyone slept until 9:30am (totally unheard of!) and then we all took a 3 hour nap and then everyone was back in bed again by 9pm. Even with all of that extra sleep, Natsuki fell asleep waiting for lunch (again, totally unheard of).

Tuesday was a family day spent with Chikara's parents going to visit Chikara's grandparents. We decided to meet early and have lunch and doing something fun before going to grandma and grandpa's house. My FIL knew of a lake that was on the way so after lunch at a restaurant (at which Natsuki screamed through the entire lunch because she wasn't allowed to hold her own drink - sigh...) so we stopped there. They had paddle boats so Emi and Misaki went out with my in-laws.

We waited at shore and I was less than thrilled to see Emi trying to climb out onto the front of the boat. There were no lifejackets and I didn't know how fast my in-laws would react so I was totally prepared to jump in and swim after them if something had happened. Sakura was totally OK with not going on the boat but I think Natsuki would've liked to go.

After that we headed to grandma and grandpa's house. Amazingly they were ready to go within 10 minutes of our arrival and we headed out to the one and only restaurant in our town that grandma will deign to go to. I've mentioned before some of her OCD tendancies and while we were getting our shoes back on I managed to take a picture of the entrance of their house and the hallway leading to the living room.

Do you see the newspaper taped down on the floor? Under the newspaper there is tissue so it's a little padded. The bottom picture where the blue slippers are is the entrance to the bathroom. I really wanted to get a picture of that but I didn't have the guts. Also, do you see the tissue stuffed into the slippers in both pictures? It's always like this. Although this trip was the first time that grandma praised grandpa for doing a good job with cleaning and laundry so he must be getting used to all of this.

Here's a picture of all of us (except me, the picture-taker) after we ate dinner.

I know that grandpa turned 80 this year so grandma must turn 80 later this year or next year. It seems, despite all of their complaints, that they are in good health. They polished off an a la cart dinner before I was even halfway through mine and they carried on conversations while giving orders to everyone. Fortunately Natsuki didn't scream through this meal. Well, actually she did but they were screams of joy and she thoroughly entertained both of them. I was worried that she might be too loud for them but all of the rest of us were tired so she really carried the entertainment all by herself!

We got home not too late but Emi and Misaki had school the next morning so we got everyone right into bed. I had been looking forward to Wednesday morning all week because Chikara had promised to clean the balcony for me. In an effort to prepare for cockroach season in the summer, I had really wanted to scrub the floor and walls of the main balcony of our house where I put out our laundry. Last year we had two cockroaches come in the house and we can only guess that they came from this balcony. All of the garbage has been moved down to the garage but just in case there were any leftover eggs or bits of garbage that would attract them, I had asked Chikara if he wouldn't mind cleaning it for me. He hates cockroaches just as much as I do so he was more than willing to tackle this project. This picture probably doesn't look like much so it's mostly for my mom who was here in February and can probably appreciate the difference.

Thank you Chikara!

From Thursday (last week now) everything went back to almost normal. Chikara had to go to work and the girls were in school but they were coming home an hour early each day because of parent/teacher conferences. There are two of these each year and the one in May is when the teacher comes and visits our house and the second one is in the fall (right?) and the parent goes to the school. Both Emi and Misaki's teachers were coming on Friday and I wasn't sure if they would just want to talk in the entrance of our house, which is what has happened in past years, or if these teachers would want to come upstairs. I couldn't decided how much to clean so in the end I took some extra time and cleaned up everything which is good because both teachers asked to come upstairs. Chikara was shocked but I knew from reading the blogs of other expat moms that this happens, too.

Both of the girl's teachers had really good things to say about my girls. I had been worried about Misaki and if she was paying attention or not but the teacher said that she was doing really good. Misaki's teacher also said that she was surprised at how good Misaki's writing had gotten in just a short time. I explained that after the first two days of homework, I noticed that Misaki wasn't writing *on* the lines but *around* them so I told her that probably the teacher wanted her to follow the lines to learn how to write her characters correctly so by the third day she had started doing it properly. Emi's teacher was totally fascinated by me, of course. I had actually been relieved to meet Misaki's teacher because she was very focused on Misaki but Emi's teacher was all, how did you meet you husband and where did you get married, etc. She also asked if we could possibly translate a song from English to Japanese for her to teach to the class. She was really sweet though and I don't think Emi cares if her teacher is focused on her or not so it seems like both of the girls are going to get on in their classes very well.

I had actually had a dream the night before they came that Misaki's teacher had showed up at 5am in the morning (instead of her 3:30pm scheduled time) and basically talked badly about everything I was doing. In the dream she was shocked that all the kids weren't up and dressed and I was trying to say that 5am is way too early, etc. When I woke up, I was in a bit of a panic and it took me a few minutes to orient myself. I was very relieved to meet both of the teachers and find out that they were very nice ladies. I hate it when my subconscious interferes with my sleep!!!

What else? Oh, we bought an airconditioner for Emi & Misaki's room and Natsuki and Sakura loved the box.

Also, this week Natsuki started playing with dolls. She's pretended to be interested when her sister's had played with their dolls before but this was the first time I saw her get out the dolls and accessories by herself and have imaginary play. It was so precious and she didn't even care that I was taking pictures. She kept saying, "baby, baby" and one time she said, very sternly, "NO". I wonder where she gets that from...

Since we didn't get to go to Kobe last Monday, we decided to go this Monday after the girls got home from school. My friend Abigail had her second baby on May 1st and we hadn't gotten a chance to visit them and since they live in Kobe, too, we decided to just make a day of it. We visited with Abigail first. When Natsuki saw the baby, she thought he was a doll and she wiped her hands on her shirt and held them out to me. She really totally expected me to hand him over. I did let her hold him later (with my help) and I think she was unprepared for the fact that he was real! I wish I could've captured the look on her face at that moment.

They named their son Joel, which is the name of my youngest brother and when I told Emi and Misaki that we were going to go and see him their immediate thought was, "Uncle Joel turned into a BABY!". Uhhhhhhhhh, no. I also told Abigail that my brother likes to be called Joel the Magnificent and it seems like they might just borrow that for their little Joel!

OK, I'm totally losing steam here so I'll write all about our Kobe adventures (including a visit to the new Ikea) later on.

pants on fire...

2008-05-01T11:04:00.003+09:00

In general I really enjoy the challenges of parenting. There are times when I feel like giving up or giving in but usually my mommy instincts kick in and soon I'm back on track. That being said, sometimes I have no clue what to do about some of the behavior issues that pop up from time to time. Although I think our children are well-behaved, they do have their own personality quirks and/or stage-of-life issues. Emi is bossy, Misaki is forgetful, Sakura is searching for her place in the family and Natsuki is learning to obey. For the most part their bad behavior falls neatly into these categories so it's easy to see it coming and both Chikara and I know what to do about it, plus the kids know that their behavior is wrong since we've gone over it a lot. But occasionally bad behavior comes out of left field and not only did we not see it coming, we also have no idea what to do next.

Case in point is Misaki's behavior over the last few weeks. I had anticipated that "something" would happen because she was starting elementary school and there are a lot of new experiences and new emotions that go along with that. Emi was the same way last year. She suddenly got more bossy (even though I didn't think that was possible) but after the first couple months of school and a lot of time-outs, she calmed down, got into the groove of her new elementary school life and peace returned to our house. I wondered how Misaki would react to this new stage in her life. Up until now, most of her bad behavior includes teasing and not paying attention to us and the consequences thereof so I thought we would get more of that. Boy was I wrong!

One night after Emi and Misaki had moved into their new room and we were putting them to bed, we couldn't find the nightlight. They don't really need it but since they're not used to the layout of their room, I thought it would be a good idea to have one so they could see if they had to get up at night to use the bathroom. But here we were, four days after moving into the room and it's already gone. I asked both of them if they had seen it or played with it and when I asked Misaki, a weird look flashed across her face for a second and then she said she didn't know. All my mommy instincts said she was lying but she's not usually like that so I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and we just left the curtains open a little bit. About an hour later, Emi came down to use the bathroom and when she went back upstairs all of sudden she was yelling for us so I went upstairs to see what had happened and Misaki is standing on the ladder for the bunkbeds holding the nightlight with a guilty look on her face. She was trying to put it back while Emi was out of the room. It was so out of character for her that I just put the nightlight in the socket and put them both in bed with a stern warning to Misaki to "cut it out". It was late and I really didn't want to get into it but it was really weird, even for Misaki.

A few days later school started and things were going smoothly. The second week of school, Misaki's jacket disappeared. This is not unusual since she often forgets her things. But by the third day of it being missing, I started to realize that it wasn't at school, maybe it was in the house or the car. I looked all around but I still couldn't find it. When I asked Misaki when she had seen it last, again the weird look went across her face. What?!? I stopped what I was doing and met her eyes and asked her again.

Me: Misaki, do you know where your jacket is?

Misaki: No.

Me: If I find out that you actually know where it is and you've been lying to me you will get a spanking because that kind of behavior is definately not OK. Do you understand?

Misaki: ...what if I find it right now?

Seriously, she said that. Suddenly it was clear to me that she was, in fact, lying. My sweet, sweet Misaki was lying (badly) to my face. What should I do? What should I do? Ahhhhhh! (deep breath, deep breath) So I told her I would just be mad and she stood up, walked into the living room, pretended to look around for a second and then pulled her jacket out from BEHIND THE TV! She had hidden it there because she didn't want to wear it to school. It's not that she didn't like the jacket but after one warm day the week before, she had decided that she didn't want to wear a jacket but the weather turned cool again so I wanted both her and her sister to wear their jackets to school and if it warmed up then they could just put it in their bags.

We had a little talk about how lying is wrong and she cried and apologized very nicely but it was all very bewildering for me since she hasn't ever really lied to me like this before. When Chikara came home from work, I told him the whole story and we talked about what we should do. Obviously, lying is totally unacceptable and even if it seems benign at this age, I would never want my children to get into a habit of lying that would be hard to break as they got older. Do you know adults that lie habitually? It's not pretty and we definitely don't want that for our children. One Scripture I constantly remind myself about is Proverbs 22:6,

"Train up a child in the way he should go
And when he is old he will not depart from it"

This is it, childhood, our big chance to teach our kids all the things they need to know. But how? How can we reach Misaki and let her know that lying in any form is wrong? Misaki usually learns by indefinable means. As in, I have no idea how she finally figured out how to use the toilet, or write letters or jump rope. We tried any way we could think of to describe what we wanted her to do, showed her, drew a picture for her, talked about it, etc. but all of a sudden one day she could just do it. I've talked before about the owie on her left forearm. One day, after two years of encouraging her to stop picking it, she just stopped. Out of the blue. I have no idea what finally clicked for her and most milestones in her life have been like that. So although I'm grateful that she finally figured out all of that stuff, I have no idea what process she uses to learn things so again I'm at a loss as to how to explain to her, meaningfully, what we want from her.

But on the other hand, maybe I'm overreacting. Two lies in the space of two weeks during an emotionally charge time in her life. Give the kid a break. Maybe this won't turn into a new habit but is just a result of everything else that is going on in her life. I turned to these nice thoughts in an effort to calm myself down.

After the coat incident, Chikara and I decided that maybe she needed a little sleep occasionally in the afternoons to regain her equilibrium. At that time she was still coming home at 11:30am and so between 2 and 3, I had her lay down for a little sleep. That evening when I took her upstairs to get her stuff ready for school the next day, she was blah-blahing as we were walking up the stairs. Yes, I was thinking but other stuff but as I tuned into what she was saying, our conversation went like this.

Misaki: Oh, sorry...

Me: What for?

Misaki: Actually, I don't know, I think it was Sakura.

Me: Sakura what?

Misaki: I don't know but there's black stuff on my bed. Maybe someone drew something.

Me: What?!? (not overreacting at all - yeah right!)

It turned out that during her naptime, she had taken her pencil and gotten the tip wet, drawn on her stuffed animals and then worried that we would find out so she hid the whole thing under her pillow and, the icing on the cake, hid the pencil under her futon. Unfortunately for her, I found the whole thing and she had that same weird look on her face. There we go. Three lies in a row, each worse than the other and each time she tried to cover it up and did not succeed. I guess I should be glad that she's a bad liar so at least this is all out in the open and we can deal with it. What did I do? Well, I had told her that if she lied again she would get a spanking so I gave her a spanking, held her afterwards while she cried, we prayed together, I told her I loved her and she apologized. But I knew that none of it had sunk in for her.

A few days later while she was playing in her room, she called Sakura and gave her something and then called her a minute later and gave her something else. Sakura was all excited and showed us two superballs. It was all OK until we realized that actually the superballs were Emi's superballs and Misaki was secretly giving them to Sakura. Now this time there was no lying but still very odd behavior for Misaki. So I had a talk with her and she had to apologize to Emi but again, I knew she didn't get it.

Then yesterday morning, while Chikara was getting ready to go to work, he calls upstairs and asks if I know where the toothpaste is. Now I admit that lately I've been absentminded but that one totally stumped me. I went downstairs to check it out and sure enough the toothpaste was gone but a similarly shaped tube of hand lotion was in it's place. Misaki. Why? When Misaki and Emi came home from school, I asked both of them together about the toothpaste and Emi's face was a total blank but the weird look flashed over Misaki's face. She was all, "Toothpaste, what toothpaste, I don't think I've ever seen Daddy's toothpaste, etc." while smiling the whole time. So we walk downstairs together and I show her the lotion and where the toothpaste should be and she's feigning innocence the whole time but I know that she's lying. But what I can't figure out is why on earth this would've happened in the first place. It's so totally and completely random. She wouldn't tell me so I spanked her and then in two seconds she "found" it. It was behind the washing machine. I was so in shock over the whole thing that I could hardly form a coherent sentence. She could produce no reason as to why she had taken the toothpaste, hidden it behind the washing machine and replaced it with lotion. And I totally believe her. I think there is absolutely no reasoning to it which is why it's going to be so hard to put a stop to it. I gave her another spanking, held her while she cried, prayed with her, told her I loved her and she apologized to me and later to Chikara after he came home from work. But again, I don't think we reached her. She actually tried to pretend that she couldn't remember what she was supposed to apologizing to Chikara about even though I had reminded her only a few seconds before.

So here I am today, bewildered. I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised. In preparation for the grade school years I've done a lot of reading and I knew that these are the years when children start lying, cheating, stealing and bullying. Maybe not all of them but all kids will try at least one and if parents don't step up right away then what started as an experiment could turn into a lifelong problem.

I also talked to my mom about it. My parents have been teachers since the year I was born and they've worked with all different grades and now my dad is the principal of a private school in Canada and one of his main areas of responsibility is to deal with behavior issues of his students. My mom said that lying in girls is a pride issue. They don't want to look bad so they create elaborate lies to cover up the teeniest thing. I can see how this relates to Misaki. She likes her image of being cute and sweet and she enjoys being well-liked by her friends and adults that she knows. None of the things she did were in themselves exceptionally bad but the lying to cover them up and her unwillingness to tell the truth even after we knew she was lying are the part that scare me. Another part of this that makes me sad is that I can't trust her. I could always trust my kids that they were trying to do the right thing. They might make mistakes from a lack of knowledge but never from willfull disobedience. It's not fun at all.

So why am I sharing this with all of you. Mostly just to share and get it off my chest. Some of you may be upset by my methods of dealing with it and that's OK. Maybe someone has some good advice for me, too. Maybe someone has been through the same thing and has come out the other side and can encourage me. Maybe no one will comment at all but at least it's not bottled up inside of me anymore.

I love my sweet Misaki and I know we'll get through this but right now, in the middle of it, I just have no idea what to do next.

some pics

2008-04-25T09:30:00.003+09:00

What a poser!!!

Finally, a quiet corner just for me!

Isn't this a cool shot?

I love the look of joy on Sakura's

Emi hates to lose...

bs

2008-04-24T10:04:00.002+09:00

Did any of you other moms living in Japan have to do the bum sticker test this morning? And we get to do it tomorrow morning, too. Woo-hoo.

I don't even know what they're testing for. Sheesh...

if my life was a reality show...

2008-04-23T11:13:00.004+09:00

If my life was a reality show then there would be someone there to catch all of those unpredictable moments on video. I wish I had known that...

...Misaki would come home so excited on Monday because she had HOMEWORK! Then I could show it to her a year from now when she learns that homework never ends. Ever.

...Natsuki would be so excited about being allowed to drink juice from a cup on her own. And that she would do so well and then say "yeah" and try to give me a high five.

...Emi would dance so well to the Hannah Montana song on the video I taped for her.

...our family would quietly (because I just gave everyone a warning) clap for Natsuki when she drank from a cup all by herself when we ate out at our favorite ramen restaurant. We must've been a sight!

Does anybody want the job?

an addition

2008-04-23T11:11:00.000+09:00

I almost forgot the most amusing moment that I wish I could've capture on video. It would be the look on Misaki's face at dinner when Sakura told her to scoot over to make room for Sakura's new imaginary friend, Sakorika-chan. Even for Misaki, our creative child, this was out of the realm of possibility!

I've read about imaginary friends and children tend to create them after a big move or after older siblings go off to school and younger children lose their playmates. As much as Sakura likes playing with Natsuki, it's not the same as playing with her older sisters. Through some nonchalant questioning, we found out that Sakorika-chan is an one-chan (older sister) and that makes total sense to me.

I had imaginary friends when I was little, too. Actually I had three of them. I don't exactly remember their names but my parents clearly do since they've reminded me from time to time. Somehow I'm glad that at least one of my girls has created an imaginary friend for herself. Maybe the same will happen with Natsuki when Sakura starts preschool next year. I guess I'll have to wait and see. Hee-hee!

Sakura-speak

2008-04-23T11:08:00.002+09:00

Everyday brings surprising things from Sakura's mouth.

Sakura-speak: I want to watch jo-nuts! (This is funnier if you say it out loud)
Translation: I want to watch Jonah (VeggieTales)!

Sakura: What day is it today?
Me: Thursday.
Sakura: You mean "cute" Thursday?

Sakura: Where are my craycils?
Translation: Where are my crayons?

Also, Natsuki's favorite new word is "woah". She says it for anything out of the ordinary.

how long will this last...

2008-04-11T09:19:00.004+09:00

Last year I didn't create any kind of organizational system for all of the papers that Emi brought home everyday other than putting it all in one place in the closet in the living room. Although that worked well because it was easy, by the end of the year there was a pile a foot high of papers that didn't really require keeping. I just kept her school books in the same place and every morning we would take out the books she needed for the day and leave the rest on top of the pile of papers. This worked well until before Christmas when we lost her music book. I thought for sure that it got left at school but two weeks ago when I went through the pile I found it. Oops!

But last year's experiences did help me figure out what to expect this year and I am determined that all of the girl's books, papers and bags will be stored and organized in their room instead of my living room closet. I spent most of March looking at and contemplating storage units, boxes and filing systems but nothing really suited our specific needs. Although maybe if we bought a desk like every other first grader that would be the answer but there just isn't space for a desk (never mind two desks or four - yikes!).

After thinking about it for a whole month, I realized that I wasn't any closer to making a decision so I decided to go back to square one and write a list of what I needed to store and how often it needed to be accessed and then work from there.

School Books - need to be accessed every day as they bring different books depending on what classes they have.

Completed Homework - this is homework that has already been checked by the teacher and therefore serves no further purpose except to create a pile that I have emotional issues with (should I throw it out or not). Although they need to add to it everyday, I don't need to know what's in there.

Backpack - obviously they use it every day but different things need to go in there depending on the day and what they have scheduled so it needs to be easy to get to.

PE Clothes - once school really gets going they will take their PE clothes on Monday and then it home on Friday if they used it during the week. Then I just wash it on the weekend and they take it back again. But I also needed to have a place to store their extra shirts (long-sleeve and short-sleeve for different seasons). This doesn't need to be accessed all the time but we do need to know where it is!

Napkin, Hand Towel and Tissue - I had a crash course on napkins last year. I though napkins were paper napkins that they took each day but they're actually a 50cm x 50cm handkerchief that they put on their desk to protect it when they eat lunch. Last year Chikara had to rush out the night before and buy a few so that Emi had something to take the next day. I think most kids take a new napkin everyday but Emi and I decided that if it wasn't dirty then it could be used again so we go through 2 or 3 per week. The kids are also required to have a hand towel (for drying their hands after using the bathroom) and tissue in their bags but Emi has informed me that she "never" uses them. She just air dries her hands. But I try to make sure it's in their bags anyways. So obviously these items require easy access, too.

Book Bag - this is a separate bag that they take only when the teacher requests it, usually to bring back a whole bunch of extra stuff that won't fit in their regular school bag. They use it maybe once a month.

Other - last year we bought a painting set for Emi that is all neatly contained in a cool bag with a handle and shoulder strap. It hasn't been asked for yet so we're just keeping it at home. Also they both have a kenban harmonica that they will eventually need, too.

Backup School Supplies - both girls have a wide assortment of extra pencils, erasers and other supplies to be used as replacements in their pencil case if somethings gets lost or used up.

OK, I think that's it. The room is pretty small so I had to be creative but I think what I came up with should work pretty well.

I bought these plastic see-through containers to go under their beds.

They pull out easily from under the bed.

The front part of the lid flips up so they can have easy access to the front part so that's where I put their books, napkins etc. and backup supplies go in the front while their extra PE clothes are organized in the back portion.

I found these colorful trays at our local 100yen shop so everything doesn't slide around.

Their book bags and school bags (not pictured) hang on the end of their beds. These hooks don't fit securely on the board at the end so I'm still looking for something that I trust more. But for now it's good.

Underneath their bags is the other stuff that they'll eventually take to school. The pink bag is Emi's paint set and the yellow things are their kenban harmonica cases.

I put these two black trays in their closet to collect their homework but I don't really like it so I'm still looking for something that can tuck away out of sight. Hmmm...

I put these clear cases on the inside of their closet door to hold their school schedules so we can easily reference what they're supposed to be bringing everyday. Eventually they'll be writing in their renrakucho (a notebook for communication between parents and teachers) each day so we'll refer to that instead.

I really like it because it's all of the storage items I bought were able to tuck away into unused spaces. Because the room is small I'm trying to keep any floor space free and clear so the room feels bigger. So far this system is working well but we'll see how long it lasts....

I didn't really write much about how the walls turned out because they turned out great and I didn't have much to add. Repairing the hole in the wall tried all of my patience and I had to try a few different things until I felt it would be long-lasting so it was a great relief when it was finally finished. My FIL used to be an electrician so I asked him to come and replace all of the switches and outlets for me. I knew I could do it by myself but my in-laws had been totally uninterested in the project (even though the girls went on and on about it) so I wanted to include them somehow. Anyways, he came out one afternoon and switched them around and when I went into check them I saw this:

Can you see the line leading out from both sides near the bottom of the plate? When he was screwing in the backplate he did it too tightly (which is normal) and it moved back the piece of sheetrock that I had added there and now you can see a line even though before it was very smooth and impossible to know that there had ever been a hole there. I should've warned him to be careful but I'm new at this and I didn't think about it. I am very heartbroken and it's taking all of my willpower not to take it apart and do it again. Grrr! Oh well, I learned something for next time.

the beginning of a new school year

2008-04-09T22:45:00.005+09:00

I have been looking forward to this last Monday for over a year now. Both Emi and Misaki are in elementary school together. No more trying to follow the schedules of two schools. This will only last for one year and then for the next 15 years I will have kids in at least two or more schools at one time. For example, next year Emi and Misaki will be in elementary school while Sakura will be in preschool and then the year that Natsuki finally becomes a first grader, Emi will go into junior high school. So not until the year that Sakura and Natsuki are both in high school will all my school age children be in one school again. And even after that there's still three more years to go. I'll be 50 when Natsuki finally graduates from high school. But that's looking waaaaaay too far into the future. For now I'm going to concentrate on this year of respite from "the schedules" and try to enjoy myself. I'd love to take on another DIY project, either the stairs and hallway leading up to the 3rd floor or Sakura & Natsuki's bedroom.

But my main goal for this year is to find a pace for our post baby-making lives. We've talked before about building a house but we're feeling more and more like we need to learn how to manage this life before we try to take it to the next level. I'm talking about household chores, ministry, community events (there's a lot of these), family, husband/wife relationship (dates? what's that?), budgets, work, teaching the kids English, etc. There are a lot of things that I feel we should be doing that we have put on the shelf each time we had another baby.

This Spring Break almost every afternoon I set aside one hour and worked with Emi and Misaki on their English reading and writing skills. The school that my dad is the principal of in Canada uses a great program called Spell to Write and Read. I've modified this program for my ESL classes and have found it to be very successful but I wanted to use the full program for my kids. Last year it was totally out of the question but this year it's a real possibility. I decided to jumpstart the program during Spring Break and then carry on throughout the year once or twice a week. Emi and Misaki already know their ABC's and can write most of them from memory so we started in on phonics and within one week they could read any 3-letter word I put in front of them. It was a good start and they participated wholeheartedly. When my mom visited two months ago she spent some time reading to the kids and Misaki especially was really interested in picking out and reading words that she knew. Anyways, I hope I can keep this up!

In preparation for the start of school I took Emi and Misaki to get their hair cut. I do not like the cut Emi got. It's not straight for starters. It looks good from the front or the back but definitely not from the side. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to take her back and get it fixed. She doesn't like it because it's shorter than she thought it would be and she cried for a whole hour after it was cut. I've taken the girls to the same salon for the past year and I've always like their cuts so I'm at a total loss as to why we got such bad service this time. I'm a little nervous to try again.

What do you think?

Yes, I took this picture without her permission. Yes, She'll freak out if she knows I posted it here!!!

On Monday was Misaki's ceremony for the start of school (Nyugakushiki). Compared to last year's experience with Emi, this year was a breeze. Misaki knew exactly what to expect so she just sailed around with a big smile on her face. Her favorite friend from preschool was in her class and sitting beside her. Kazuki-kun! If Misaki was a cartoon character her eyes would turn into little hearts everytime she says his name. He is a sweet boy and I can see why she likes him. He's exactly the same as her! They both tuned out everything that was going on and just fiddled with their clothes and stared around the room with big, huge, lighthearted smiles on their faces. Funny kids.

It was impossible to get a good picture during the ceremony. The weather was awful outside so there wasn't a lot of light inside the gymnasium. I tried different settings with my camera but nothing came out right. I like this picture anyways. This is Misaki and Kazuki-kun walking out at the end.

This picture is in their classroom as they were getting ready to go back to the gym for their class picture.

This picture it the best I could do under the weather conditions. You can see the cherry blossom tree a little bit in the corner.

The next morning we woke up early and met all of the other kids in our neighborhood to walk to school together. There are almost 60 boys and girls in our immediate neighborhood who are in elementary school and they are divided into "hans" led by an older student and then they walk to school with their group. I took a few pictures but Emi and Misaki wouldn't let me take a picture of them together outside and Misaki refused to smile. I'm not sure why.

All in all, they seem to be enjoying themselves. Emi found out what class she's in on Tuesday and some of her friends from last year are in her class again. We won't meet her teacher until the first open house at the end of the month. It's kind of a funny system but I have no reason to complain. School lunch starts tomorrow for Emi so she won't be home until 2pm but Misaki continues to have halfdays until the 23rd. My goal for this month is to get the girls into the habits that I want them to keep for the year about where their school stuff goes. I'll post some pictures soon but I'm hoping that we can work out a system so that all of their school books and stuff can stay in their room. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, I bought a new vacuum cleaner! We haven't bought a vacuum cleaner since we moved to Japan. Chikara's dad gave us an old one they weren't using and we also ordered a cordless vacuum from a catalog that someone gave us as a gift. The battery on the cordless vacuum gave out after a year (although it was still in our kitchen) and the other one had slowly started to come apart (literally). We've been talking about buying a new vacuum for about a year but finally I got frustrated and just bought it. We wanted an upright vacuum not one with a cannister and a long hose. Our house is the stories and I had carrying that kind around plus it's a pain to store in a closet. Also we wanted a bagless vacuum and Chikara insisted (and I concurred) that a cordless vacuum was out of the question. I hadn't really seen anything that I liked until this one. Among it's many cool features, the cord retracts at the push of a buttom and the handle pulls out so you can vacuum corners and stairs, etc. Plus it was on sale!

I have to say that I love it and I've already vacuumed more in the last week than I have in the last two months. It's so easy to take from floor to floor and the cord is nice and long but still retracts easily. Being able to take the wand out and vacuum hard to reach corners is really awesome plus it's very powerful. After I vacuumed the tatami the first time it felt cleaner than it has in a long time so we're all happy!

That's all for us right now. I took this week off from my Tuesday ESL classes and it has been lovely although I've totally lost track of what day of the week we're on!

I've been meaning to share my vote for the You Cheer Me Up Award and it has to go, hands down, to Gina. She is such an encourager, not only in what she writes on her own blog but also the comments that she makes on everyone else's blog. I can always count on a sunny outlook from her and I would LOVE to live at her house just so I could eat all the of the wonderful things she cooks. If you haven't read her blog then you should definitely check it out. There are many other wonderful bloggers who's blogs I find thought-provoking and insightful but for cheerfulness and feeling cheered up, Gina would definitely be my choice.

Thanks Gina for being such an encouragement to me this year. I hope I can return the favor!

PS I went back to April 2007 archives to try and link to what I wrote about Emi's Nyugakushiki and imagine my surprise to find that I hadn't written *anything*. gulp! I wrote about all the prep leading up to it and then nothing until the first open house. I kind of feel bad about that. On the upside, it was fun to read through all I was going through last year! Check out the March archives, too. Hysterical stuff with my MIL.

PPS Why is the spacing so screwed up when I post pictures? Is anyone else having this problem? How did you fix it? Grrr....

all shades of pink

2008-04-02T11:32:00.004+09:00

I am very proud to say Emi and Misaki have moved into their new room! It's not exactly like what we first talked about but it's beautiful nonetheless and the girls are really excited about it. The room kind of looks like an explosion of pink and honestly, a little too much pink for my tastes, but it's perfect for the two of them.

I painted the room last Saturday (two Saturdays ago maybe). I painted the light pink first and I was so proud of it but when I showed it to Chikara and the girls they couldn't see the difference. Then I painted the last wall the dark pink color and after the first coat it was too much. Chikara asked if he could see it and I wouldn't show it to him! It looked like the circus had come and thrown up on that wall. So I mixed some of the light pink with the rest of the dark pink paint and tried that on the walls and it was much better. It's still bright but I wanted it to be contrasting. And it is!

Then on Monday I took all the girls to my friend's house in the morning and Chikara and I started in on moving the bunk bed from one room to the other and putting everything else in place. We were shocked by all the dust and pieces of paper that we found behind the bunk bed. I think I've cleaned back there maybe once since we bought it three years ago. Obviously I'm going to have to be a little more diligent from now on. The more I worked on the room, the more I liked it. The bedspread is a little darker than the light pink walls but not as dark as the bright wall and the curtains have a white background with different color flowers and then the rugs are another shade of pink and red.

We finally finished around 3:30 in the afternoon and I went to pick up the girls. They had had a lovely time and weren't even curious about what we had been doing. I hadn't told them because I wanted it to be a total surprise. Also, I was worried about how Sakura was going to react to being left out. Once we got back home, I asked Misaki and Emi to take some folded laundry up to their rooms and put it away. I was waiting at the bottom of the stairs with my camera but no sound came from upstairs. I waited and waited and still nothing so I went upstairs and Misaki was already sitting on her bed and Emi was standing in the doorway with her mouth hanging open. Then she turned to me and said, "So *this* is why we went to Ruri's house!". Can't slip anything by her!

They were so excited. They said thank you and exclaimed over every part of the room. Misaki kept saying, "I don't know what to say!", and they hopped from the bed to the closet and back to their beds again. Both of them said they wanted to go to sleep RIGHT NOW! But it was only 4:30 so they had a little more to go. I told them that this was their room now and that Sakura and Natsuki weren't allowed in. They are allowed to come up whenever they want and they can put all their "private" stuff" on the shelves in their bed. Already I can tell that there will be more peace in the house because everyone will have a little bit more space from each other. We enjoy our time as a family but sometimes six people in one room is too much!

Anyways, here are some pictures for your enjoyment.

I have yet to buy the mirror or make the picture frames for their drawings but I haven't seen anything that I thought was right for the room. Ikea is opening in Kobe in two more weeks so hopefully I'll be able to find something there.

Special thanks go to my mom for making the curtains and duvet covers when she visited in February and for the advice about the changing the light fixture. Also, my friend Kelly brought the pink and red rugs from the Ikea in Tokyo this weekend. Thanks Kelly!

Here are Emi and Misaki in their special room.

Amazingly, Sakura has had no problem with the fact that Emi and Misaki got a special room and she didn't. Since she is now sleeping on the single bed that used to be Emi's, she thinks that she got all new stuff, too. I'm a little worried about Sakura and Natski sleeping together but I'm sure they'll figure it out. Natsuki's never slept in a room with anyone before (except for special trips) so she's waking up early in the morning thrilled to find a friend to talk to. We'll keep working on it!

Thank you everyone for your encouragement along the way!

maybe it just seems like it...

2008-03-26T10:36:00.004+09:00

Maybe it's not true but it seems like everyone I know (in my real world and in the blog world, nevermind Hollywood) is pregnant. Or thinking about getting pregnant. Or wishing they were pregnant. And it's weird for me to think that I'll never do that again. Being pregnant and having babies has been so much a part of my life for the last 9 years that it's hard to know what to think about without it. 9 years ago this month we started trying to get pregnant with Emi. It took us a whole year. In fact if we hadn't gotten pregnant in March 2000 we were going to go to a doctor and get tested. Fortunately we did get pregnant so we didn't have to get on that emotional rollercoaster. Instead we got on another one! For the last 8 years I've been pregnant for over 3 and a half of them and then taken care of an infant for the other 4 years. Basically this is what my whole being has been wrapped up in and as others around me continue to contemplate and experience this stage of life, it's odd to me that I don't have to do it anymore. I can think about the next stage, whatever that is. I guess "it" will just happen and I'll morph into that person just like I've turned into a mother without even realizing it.

It seems like Natsuki is going to be a strong-willed child. There, I said it, I feel better. Maybe she won't but man, she knows how to voice her opinion. Maybe she thinks she has to be loud and ornery just to keep up with her sisters. For such a little one, she has a very commanding presence. We're teaching her about "no" and that we really did mean "no" when we said it. Really. You've already seen the face she put on when I said she couldn't play in the garbage but she's realized that trying to garner our sympathy doesn't get her what she wants so now she's onto rolling her eyes or furrowing her eyebrows or falling to the ground in tears, etc. And she's only 1-1/2. She's not even 2 yet. Does this mean she'll be more difficult at 2 or are we going through it now and she'll be easier at 2 and then more difficult at 3. Sigh...

It seems like Misaki may have a weird illness. My little Misaki has had more odd injuries than the rest of the girls. She bent her collarbone when she was 1-1/2 falling off the couch even though I was sitting right in front of the couch waiting to catch her. She missed. She had her first X-ray that day. None of my other girls have had to have X-rays. Also, Misaki got chickenpox first. She also got mumps, warts and lice first. But she doesn't get colds very much. I'd say she's a healthy child with odd ailments. And her latest ailment is very odd indeed. In December, she fell at school (a common occurence) and bonked her ankle. Her teacher called to tell us about it and by the time she got home she was fine and walking around with no problem. A few weeks later, I noticed that the area was swollen but when I touched it, the area was kind of hard and more like a bump than just swollen. Weird. A few weeks later I realized that the bump was still there so in the beginning of February I took her to the doctor. There she had her second X-ray. Woo-hoo! The X-ray didn't show anything and the doctor thought that maybe if I padded the area so it wasn't getting rubbed by her shoes, etc., that it might go away on it's own. But please come back if it hasn't. Well, not only has it not gone away but now she's got a bump on her elbow and another bump forming on her knee. They don't hurt or itch and it doesn't seem to be effecting her movement. In fact, she learned how to jump rope in the last three months so obviously her joints are still working. Anyways, we're going to take her to the doctor during Spring Break when both Chikara and I can go together. I hope it's nothing serious. I'm not ready for one of the girls to be seriously, life-threateningly sick. Has anybody seen anything like that before?

It seems like the house will never be clean. I have been organizing closets and clothes and piles for weeks now and there still seems to be more of them. The girls brought back massive amounts of paper when school was finished and I can't decide what I should keep and what should be thrown away. I can't imagine what I'll do when all four of the girls are in school! I've been doing laundry faithfully but there's still a pile of dirty clothes. I've been washing dishes faithfully but there's still a pile of dirty dishes. I know, I know, that's a part of running a household but I was hoping that once Natsuki was a bit older and less dependant on me that I would be able to get back into a rythmn with all of this stuff.

On the good side, I am enjoying more great friendships now than I have since before I moved to Japan. This last Sunday at church as we were sitting around the table having lunch with our friends and all of our kids, I realized that I was relaxed, happy, enjoying the conversation (in Japanese!) and I felt normal, a part of this world (cue Little Mermaid music) and I liked it. And it only took seven years!

It seems like Emi's first year of school was a complete success. We got her report card and in every area she received a "dekiru" comment instead of the "gambarou" comment. Dekiru means she can do it and gambarou means she needs to try harder. The teacher wrote a nice note to us about how well she did. After all the nervousness of last April, I am very relieved. Now, how will Misaki do this year? Probably just as well as her sister.

Well, there you go, a look into the corners of my mind. I think this is typical of most moms. The worries and the triumphs all mixed up together.

You Cheer Me Up!

2008-03-22T13:16:00.002+09:00

Hey! I won an award! Or at least someone nominated me for one. Nay, a new reader to my blog, wrote a lot of really nice things about me, too. Wow! I feel so special. Especially since I (nervously) gave her some advice that might've been hard to take after she posted about a relationship problem she was having with her fiance. Obviously she's not mad at me but I was nervous all the same. I'm sure with her great attitude that she'll have good success in her marriage.

Anyways, I've been thinking about some blogs that keep me in good cheer recently so I'll post about that soon.

Thanks again, Nay! Good luck with the wedding planning!