Holy Clean Plate, Batman!

So anyone who knows my kids knows they are not the best eaters, Leah especially.  Food has not been Leah's thing since she was a baby, starting with rice cereal.  The day she ate seven bites of cereal was cause for celebration.  I used to have to sing or read to her while she ate her baby food.  Making the leap to table food has been an Olympic effort.  I have tried a plethora of strategies just to have her try new food:  stickers/rewards chart (lasted about a week), not leaving the table until she takes a bite (she fell asleep once), not getting anything else to eat until the next meal (she went about a week with no lunch or dinner).  When she was really young, she wouldn't even tolerate a new food on her plate.  The "old" Leah would stop eating altogether if her plate was "contaminated" with a new food.  Over time she graduated to allowing the new food to sit on her plate but not even thinking about touching it.  From there it moved to licking the new food and finally trying one bite (reluctantly and often gagging). 

One day during Kindergarten the switch flipped and Leah would willingly try new food.  While she didn't add any new foods to her unbelievably small universe it was still a huge step.  I mean, Leah does not eat any of the "traditional" kids' foods:  mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs, hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, grilled cheese, etc.  Up until about a month ago, she would only eat freeze-dried fruit instead of fresh fruit. (Now she will eat fresh apples slices.)

So since about May I've been able to get Leah and Aaron (who is not nearly as bad as his sister but is definitely influenced by her negative opinions of food) to eat three or four bites of each food being served at dinner before they could have "Leah/Aaron food."  Tonight Matt and I experienced a totally new phenomenon:  a clean plate AND asking for seconds.  For dinner I made grilled pork chops, cheesy noodles (egg noodles with Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top) and steamed green beans.  Aaron wolfed down his three bites of pork cops almost immediately.  Leah ate her noodles, then her bits of pork chop and with the help of our game ("You're not going to eat my [insert food name here]"), her green beans.  Aaron did the same.  Then Leah asked for more cheesy noodles as did Aaron.  Matt and I were thrilled (and simultaneously dumbfounded).  We celebrated with Ghirardelli dark chocolate brownies.  (Well, they had brownies; I had Oreos.)  I hope this becomes the norm and not an anomaly.  It's been a long journey to get here.

Aaron and Leah on their second helping of cheesy noodles.

Leah shows her first-ever clean plate
after eating "grown-up" food.

Welcome Home, Sailor!

Yesterday was "Daddy Day," as Matt's ship was scheduled to return to port.  The kids (and I) were very excited. 

Waiting for Daddy.

 After four months, we were ready to have Matt home.  There was supposed to be festivities (food, drink, arts & crafts for the kids, etc.) beginning at 3:30pm.  When we got there it was hardly festive.  The weather, however, was one of the nicest days we had this Fall--sunny, no wind, and mild.  Someone told me the ship was an hour away yet.  There was no way I was going to wait that long with the kids and nothing to do so we walked all the way from the pier to the Navy Lodge, where there is a nice playground.  (In theory, it's not far but with the layout of the base, we had to go from one end of a "U" to the other end.)  The kids played for awhile and around 4:30pm I looked out at the water and I saw the BHR pulling into port, with the sailors "manning the rails."

 

The tiny "sticks" poking out of the top are sailors.

 

When we got back to the pier a little after, we saw our friends, the Harris' and Stevens' families.  Will Stevens, who was on Leah's soccer team, had the same idea as Aaron and dressed for the occasion.

 

Future sailors, Aaron and Will.

 

While we were waiting at the pier, Aaron began feeling ill and long story short, throughout the course of the entire evening, vomited four times.  Also, as it began to get dark, the wind picked up, it became colder and even began to sprinkle.  By the time Matt finally got off the ship (after 6:00pm), we, including Matt, were ready to go. 

 

Happy Daddy Day!

 

Matt has a few days off this week so we are looking forward to having some quality time together.  (Aaron more so than Leah since he is staying home from school today.)  Getting to meet Leah's teacher, see Aaron's school--even something like reading the kids a book at bedtime--things we take for granted as everyday occurrences are a treat for Matt as he gets back to life at home. 

 

Reading Oh, Daddy! by Bob Shea

 

First order of business for Matt:  watching the Redskins on Tuesday Morning Football (or Monday Night Football for those of you back in the United States).

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope your holiday was as fun as ours.  We had a “Charlie Brown” Thanksgiving.  Matt, whose deployment schedule changed, has not returned as originally planned.  Rather than be disappointed, we chose to look on the bright side and we had fun.  Leah came up with the idea of having the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving dinner of toast, popcorn, pretzel sticks and goldfish (in lieu of jellybeans) and I thought, why not?  Aaron requested pumpkin pie for dessert because he said, “I tried it when I was a baby and I liked it.”  We just built our plan from there.  We couldn’t have asked for better weather today—60 degrees and sunny with no wind.  It was the best it has been in a month.  (It has been about 50 degrees and rainy and/or cloudy and/or windy for the past few weeks.)  We had a very relaxing day—nowhere we had to go, nothing we had to cook (other than the pie), etc.  No dishes either--we used paper plates.  Leah and Aaron stayed in their pajamas until 2pm.  We will have a “traditional” Thanksgiving meal whenever Matt returns.  (I don’t know when that will be so don’t ask.)  Until then, with all due respect to Matt and my family, this Thanksgiving was legend—wait for it—ary!

7am:  The morning started off with gifts from The Turkeys. 
They were thankful we had planned not to eat them

 

8am:  Aaron feels like he should eat some turkey on Thanksgiving.

 

Making pumpkin pie is as easy as 1-2-3! 
Step 1: Combine ingredients and pour into a pie crust.

 

Step 2:  Bake pie.

Step 3:  Eat the pie!

2pm:  Spending time on the playground enjoying the weather.

4pm:  We played a little "Pin the Hat on the Turkey,"...

...followed by coloring placemats.

5:15pm:  Let the feast begin!  I didn't shuffle the toast or deal the plates, though. 

 

We watched Peanuts while we ate on folding chairs and a portable table.

 

We wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!







Hario Halloween Carnival

Tonight in our Hario Village Housing, MWR (Morale, Welfare & Recreation) sponsored a Halloween carnival which they called “Theater of Evil.”  There were carnival games, food, a haunted house, an open-air movie and trunk-or-treating. 

Tinkerbell and Peter Pan

 

It rained on and off all day so I was glad when the rain finally stopped at around 3pm because the kids were very excited about getting to wear their costumes and going to the carnival.  Leah had planned on being a black cat this year but after she saw that Aaron was going to be Peter Pan, she wanted to be Peter’s best friend, Tinkerbell.  (Thankfully I had a Disney Store gift card!)  They look super-cute in their costumes and even more so when they wear each other’s! 

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell?

 

There was a costume contest at 4pm at the commissary, but they weren’t interested.  The carnival was from 5-8pm and my original plan was to eat an early dinner at 4:30pm and then walk over to the carnival, but the kids did not cooperate with cleaning up their toys so we got a late start on dinner which meant we didn’t get to the carnival until after 6pm.  There was supposed to be “trunk or treating” on the street (blocked off from cars) between the ball field and the NEX (Navy Exchange) but by the time we got there it was all gone.  The kids did get some candy from MWR personnel and from the 1^st Class Petty Officers Association (which had a guy in an awesome Optimus Prime Transformers costume) so it wasn’t a total bust.  We saw some friends from school and from soccer but most of the kids we saw were either older or younger.  We didn’t go into the haunted house because it was not recommended for kids under 10 and without Matt there, I couldn’t have dealt with two freaked-out kids simultaneously.  I think they really don’t know what a haunted house means.  It’s just as well since they both got freaked out by the It’s Tough to be a Bug 4-D movie at Animal Kingdom.

The best part of our evening was the carnival games.  Each game cost $1 and the kids played five different games each.  There were prizes at each game, regardless if they actually won.  Aaron’s favorite game was Tic-Tac-Toe, where you throw bean bags into squares and try to get three in a row. 

Aaron got all of his bean bags into squares

Leah’s favorite (and mine) was Monster Catapult where you try to catapult a monster beanie baby into a bucket. 

Monsters away!

For most of the games Leah and Aaron played they let them move up closer to the targets, which was nice.  Overall, it was a fun night and a nice warm-up for Halloween on Wednesday.

On their way home to check out their loot!

Smurftastic Soccer Saturday

Today was the last day of soccer.  Officially, we don’t keep score.  Unofficially, my Smurfs went 4-1-1.  They did really well with the progress they made over these two months.  Leah does not like getting in the middle of the Darwinian rugby scrum that is 5- and 6-year-olds playing soccer. I'm OK with that except in each game/practice she has become less and less engaged. Before if the ball squirted loose she would run to it and dribble or shoot. Now she's the kid picking grass. I think she's happy soccer is over.  Next up for Leah is cheerleading, which begins in a week or two.

What Leah (and all the kids) enjoyed was after the game today.  The each got a medal and I gave them a Smurf goody bag and a soccer ball spirit tag.  This was followed by cupcakes, cookies and the playground.  What more could a 6-year-old ask for?

Leah with her two coaches, me and Asst. Coach Sarah

  

All the loot the kids received. 

Leah with Zaden, our neighbor and Smurf little brother.

 

Will and Jordan with their playground game, sliding into dirt

I am happy for the break but the kids were a lot of fun.  In fact, the last two soccer practices this past week I made special effects movies with them.  Below is the better of the two.  The kids loved making the movies.

My crazy Smurfs 

 

 

 

After soccer today I took Aaron to the barbershop on base to get his hair cut.  He hates to get his hair cut.  He cries and squirms.  I bribed him with lunch and bowling and he complied.  It was the best he’s ever done.  He sat still and even giggled at times with the clippers. Who knew it was that easy?  After lunch at the bowling alley café—they have THE BEST popcorn chicken—we bowled a game.  Aaron has a real knack for it.  He beat me the last time we bowled and he did it again today.  He got two strikes!  Leah also had a new personal best score and broke 100.  Overall, you can’t really ask for a better Saturday.

In my defense, the kids have bumpers and a guide to roll the ball down the lane.

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Driving in Japan has been...interesting.  The cars are smaller, roads are narrower and cars drive on the left-hand side of the road.  It's definitely been an ongoing brain challenge with the whole left side of the road thing because everything is flipped.  Not only is the steering wheel and controls on the right side of the car instead of the left but the turn signal indicator and windshield wipers are flipped.  The first few weeks I was always turning on the wipers instead of the turn signal.  I was always reaching over my left shoulder instead of my right shoulder to grab the seat belt.  And still, two months later, I still walk or at least think about walking to get in on the left side of the car instead of the right.  Physically driving on the left side of the road is actually not that hard; it's all the other parts of the equation.  It's definitely a mental work-out.  The good thing is that the speed limit in Japan is lower.  The highest speed limit I've encountered is 70 kph (43.5 mph).  Trust me, it feels fast enough.  Japanese laws are so strict I do not dare drive over the speed limit.  The speed limit here in our Hario housing area is 20 kph.  Matt feels like he can walk faster and he's probably right--that's only 12 mph.

The cars out here are all Japanese--Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Subaru, etc.  I've seen two Mercedes and one BMW.  Not a single American-made car.  I am surprised I've only seen a handful of hybrids.  Gas here on base was $3.98/gallon when I filled up last week but out in town it is about 147 yen/liter which translates roughly to about $7.52/gallon.

Everyone here drives a used car, at least the military people.  You just buy one when you get here from someone who is moving somewhere else.  Matt wanted to get a car before the kids and I arrived so he ended up buying a 1994 Toyota Windom.  It looked like a Camry and Matt said he had heard a Windom was comparable to a low-end Lexus.  I'm sure 18 years ago it was a pretty sweet ride and, for a car that old, the body and the interior were remarkably well-kept.

Not too shabby for a '94.

Steering wheel on the right.

Unfortunately, not long into the summer, the air conditioning started to work whenever it felt like it and other weird electrical things like the sound of the door locking and unlocking kept happening.  Matt wanted to get a new car but I was reticent because the car was cheap and paid for and I liked not having a car payment.  Also, he was soon leaving and I didn't want to deal with buying, registering and selling a car by myself.  I will say a black car with black interior and no sun shade gets really hot in the summer here in Japan.  The game-changer was we were now in August and our JCI was due at the end of November.

JCI is the Japanese Cumpulsory Insurance.  You have to have it in addition to your liability insurance.  The liability insurance is reasonable and you renew it every year theough a tiny little office on base.  The JCI is renewable every 1-2 years, depending on the age of the car and it involves getting your car inspected.  This is not the $30 15-minute emissions test.  It is a full-on inspection and you have to correct any problems so you can renew the JCI.  We already knew the left front tire was coming to the end-of-life and now we were experiencing the electrical problems.  I had to ask myself, "Do I want to pay possibly $500 in repairs/fees for a car that only cost $1800 and maybe have to go through the same thing the following year?"  It was time to fish or cut bait.  I was explaining all of this to my Dad and when he said, without hesitation, that I should buy a more reliable car well, that was it.  (Matt was a little put out that he had been suggesting us getting a new car for more than a month and then it just took one conversation with my Dad to make me change my mind.  I explained to him that my Dad does not spend money easily so when he was so quick to say he agreed with Matt then I got onboard with the plan.)  The rest was serendipity.  That very next day we (Leah, Aaron and I) were walking to the Post Office, taking the very same route we took every day when we saw a car for sale.  It was a 2001 Toyota Fun Wagon.  (All the cars here, despite their ages, have low mileage.  Japan is a group of islands closely the same size as California if you pushed all the islands together.  Now picture only being able to have roads on 20% of CA because of mountains.  So roads here are narrow and cars are small.  Gas is expensive and the tolls on the roads get very expensive.) 

The Fun Wagon, or the Blueberry, as the kids and I have named it (it's small and blue), was owned by a teacher at Leah's school who was being transferred back to the US.  That same day I called, test-drove it and put a deposit on it.  The owner was keeping it until the end of August but that was OK because I still had our Windom.  I got the Blueberry and junked the Windom the same week that school and soccer started as well as our HHG arrived.  Needless to say that was a rough week.  After driving the Blueberry, though, I realized how much more comfortable I felt driving it.

Oh, what a feeling!

The Blueberry, while smaller, reminds me a lot like my old Toyota Rav4.  It has a lot of the same features like the back (hatch) door opening like a door (as opposed to opening up) and the back seats can fold down or be removed.  It even has a keyless remote fob which Matt and I totally took for granted until we had our Windom and it didn't have one.  The car does show signs of its age as the radio has a CD player and a cassette tape player.  Cassette tapes!  Our Windom had an after-market car audio system with 6 CD-changer and MP3 input.  Probably cost as much as the car....  Still, I figured out that the Blueberry gets 51 km/gal (about 32 mpg) so that's good and it easily carries me & the kids and a huge bag of soccer balls.  Most importantly, the AC works (and we now have a sunshade)!  We'll have to see what Matt thinks when he gets home--he's only seen pictures!

Alice and the Typhoon

Typhoon Sanba has come and gone.  There was no school today.  We had a fair amount of wind and lots and lots of rain.  It was heavier than a drizzle but not so hard it was bouncing of the pavement.  Because of the wind, it came down diagonally and it looked like something you would see on a movie set.  Overall other than being cooped up in our apartment for two days it was no big deal.  We had a lot of pretend play, TV viewing and Angry Birds on the iPhone.

Transformers Rescue Bots is a new favorite.

One of the interesting things I learned from this whole experience was the whole pre- and post-typhoon experience.  Here you don't get the 72-hr straight hurricane coverage like you do in FL when a hurricane is close.  That is both a plus and a minus.  While I've found the "extended" news coverage to be too much in the past, it was definitely easy to find out all the information you need to know in terms of storm strength, location and things like school closings, etc.  Here they have a DEFCON-like countdown system called TCCOR (Tropical Cyclone Condition of Readiness).  TCCOR 4 means destructive winds are coming within 72 hrs and it goes down to TCCOR 1 which basically means the storm is there now.  (BTW, a typhoon is the same as a hurricane, just in the Pacific Ocean instead of the Atlantic Ocean.)  I found out about all this TCCOR business on Saturday morning when, and I am not exaggerating, an air raid siren went off followed by an announcement over a loudspeaker that could be heard throughout all of Hario.  There were announcements in both English and Japanese of the TCCOR level.  It kind of freaked me out the first time I heard it, especially the siren.  I mean, we are closer here to Pyongyang than we are to Tokyo and there are no espionage laws in Japan so you never know, really.  Also, it sounded like the tsunami sirens they have in HI.  (Luckily I only heard it once as a test.).  A tsunami is a more likely scenario but honestly, I don't want the siren to go off for either.  Anyway, the siren went off for the last time today at 4:05pm with an "All clear."  Having time around the house here gave me an opportunity to put Alice together. 

Alice is a wooden giraffe that my godfather, Uncle Judd, made for Leah when she was born.  When I was Leah's age, I remember having an Alice of my own that Uncle Judd made for me.  He made them entirely from scratch--cutting, painting, everything--not from a kit.  (Apparently Uncle Judd also made a few Ralph giraffes, which is the boy version with blue spots and horns instead of ears.)  I don't remember what happened to my Alice, if she got broken or if we ended up giving her away when I got older but my godsister Kelli (my godparents' daughter who is also my parents' godchild) still has her Alice.  I hope Leah's can last that long.  It's awesome that Uncle Judd made Alice with lots of love. Being a Navy vet himself Uncle Judd knows we are a Navy family and Navy families move frequently so he packed Alice in such a way that she will be both safe from damage and included a detailed list of instructions for her assembly.  Leah loves her Alice.

I put Alice together when Leah was a baby in HI and I had Alice up for a short time when Leah was a toddler in FL but after a few knock-downs running around in her room, I packed her away and didn't bring her out when we were in VA.  Leah didn't even remember Alice but she is thrilled to have her now.  The purpose of Alice is to hold belts, necklaces, hair ribbons, jammies, etc.  Leah has done that but she has also found another thing Alice can do:  have tea parties!

"Alice, would you like one lump or two?"

I've always known I've had the best godparents ever and now Leah loves them too--and she's never even met them.  Hopefully one day soon....

Be Careful What You Wish For...

Well, two months after arriving here (67 days if you count when the movers took our stuff away from our house in VA) our stuff finally arrived on August 31!!  It is like night and day in here.  On Thursday, August 30, I had the Housing Office take away our lovely loaner furniture,  They could have done it the same day as the movers but I thought it would be too stressful since the movers were scheduled for 9am (they actually arrived at 8:48am) and I also had to get Leah to school and Aaron to drop-in day care.  Also, I wanted to clean the floors before everything arrived and that was a good call on my part as the kids (Leah especially) eat like pigs.  As ugly as that loaner furniture was, I was really thankful after it was gone and I saw what life would have been like with folding chairs and air mattresses for two months.

Aaron eating lunch in our living room.

Leah's bedroom.

While it has been liberating in a way moving here and not owning a car (at the time) or a house and not having 95% of your possesions, I'm not ready to live in such a spartan existence just yet.  But as I wrote, you have to be careful for what you wish for because now my house is the opposite of spartan!  So on Friday August 31 the Japanese movers arrived.  There were, as you might imagine, quite organized, quiet, polite and efficient.  The even took their shoes off before entering my apartment!

The movers opening the crates with our furniture and boxes.

The movers unloaded in stages using teams of people since we live on the third floor of an apartment building.  They moved big batches of stuff from the truck to the lobby and then from the lobby to the hall outside our apartment.  Two guys (mostly) then moved everything from the hall into our apartment.  After everything was moved in, they unpacked and put together furniture.
 

I slept on the couch for a few days.

As part of their contract with the military, all the movers (not just in Japan) are required to unpack all the boxes and take away the packing material for you, if you request.  That is what I have always done in the past but since our place is so small, I was afraid there wouldn't be anywhere to work or function if I did that so I had them leave the kitchen stuff and a couple other boxes worth of stuff in their boxes. 

We ate off of paper plates for a few days.

I usually follow the Vanessa Unpacking Plan of tackling the kitchen first but I knew I had to do the kids' rooms first so they would play with their stuff and let me work.  If Matt were here I would have just made him take the kids out on the weekend so I could unpack but since that was not possible, I had to just do what I thought would work.  While it took me the whole Labor Day weekend to get through the kitchen because I had to do it in small batches of time, it only took about an hour for the kids to "unpack" all the toys in their rooms. 

Aaron's room.

Leah's room.

The following week I worked on unpacking some more until I got the place functional. On Friday I put Aaron in daycare for the day while Leah was at school so I could work on our storage unit across the hall.  Again, it might seem like that shouldn't be a top priority but it is definitely not something I can do with the kids around and while the rest of the house is awash with stuff, it is still functional; the storage unit was not.  It took me almost three hours and afterward I was completely wet with sweat, but I am happy with the results.  (Imagine taking out everything that is in your garage and then putting it back in a different way during the middle of summer for three hours and that's how I felt.)

Storage (before) #1

Storage (before) #2

Storage (after) #1

Storage (after) #2

After that Friday, I caught a cold.  It's not surprising considering the week I had when the movers came.  That same week was the first week of school, the first week of soccer and I had bought and registered a car.  The cold was thankfully mild but it was enough to put me on the couch all weekend and take the wind out of my sails.  Once the place is functional if you lose momentum, it's hard to not slip back into life.  So I am not as nearly as far as I would have hoped to be by now, and I hadn't been blogging because I felt guilty doing that instead of unpacking but by now I figured, what difference does it make?  So my new goal is to get all moved in by October so we can decorate the apartment for Halloween.  At least I will have no problems getting out my Halloween bins from my storage closet.  :-)

Let's Go Smurfs!

So today was Leah's first soccer game on the team I am coaching called the Smurfs.  As you could imagine, our uniforms are blue. 

 

It's nice because I have a good group of parents (and that often makes the difference regardless of the players) and this is a non-competitive league/age group.  In Leah's age group, it is five on five with no goalies and no score is kept.  The emphasis is on fun so that's what I try to do at practice.  My friend Beth Ann e-mailed me all the games our kids used to play at Soccer Tots together and Matt ordered me a phenomenal book from Amazon called The Baffled Parent's Guide to Coaching 6-and-Under Soccer by David Williams and Scott Graham.  It's really good because my coaching experience is with older, club-level players.  It has lots of fun games to play with them instead of the typical stand in line and do drills, which, with twelve 5-and 6-year-olds, is a better idea.  I just keep them moving all the time.

So for our game no score is kept and everyone is a winner but in reality, we won 2 - 1.  Leah said she had fun but she wasn't that involved in the game.  Of course the game is more like a rugby scrum so I can understand why she was a little tentative to mix it up in there.  Leah wasn't the only one who was on the fringes.  What was more interesting is that my two smallest (and youngest) players were right in the middle of things.  One of them, Brian, spent the first week of practice sitting on his mom's lap and watching.  Even now he picks and chooses when he wants to play and he hardly speaks so it was nice to see him come out of his shell.

Isabella & Brian, my 5-yr-old dynamos.

The game goes fast enough--it is comprised of four five-minute quarters but it was still so hot and humid that even I needed a shower after the game.  It doesn't help that it rained this morning before the game and a typhoon is on the way.  (Sidebar:  Typhoon Sanba is near Okinawa and is making its way towards Korea.  The eye of the storm won't hit Japan but we should get some bands of rain and wind.)  We don't have a game next Saturday but the Saturday after that (Sept. 29) we have a double-header.  By the end of the second game I might have to beg kids to play if it continues to be so humid. 

Will, Brian and Jordan.

 

Merrick and Payton say "Let's go Smurfs!"

 

The only bad part about coaching is during games I have to be on the field to ref/make sure kids go in the right direction, etc. so I don't get to take pictures or film Leah playing.  I hope at least one of the parents is a good photographer.  I took all of these after the game,  And one of the moms even took one with me in it.

Me and my Smurfs.