The Difference a Week Makes

Last week, things were awful. By Friday I was SO ready to cash in my mommy chips and run away. 

What a difference a week makes. T is settling SO well into preschool. He nearly forgot to say good bye this morning after he got his indoor shoes on! From all accounts he's doing well. He loves the singing and playing outside on the playground! He wants to sing the ABCs now. 

Pickups can be rocky, but it's only week 2, so I'm willing to assume that will get better too. Today was actually super easy, so there's definitely hope.

We also cut out extra activities on Tuesday and Thursday for this week. I'm not sure if that or the naps or what helped, but the week has gone much smoother than last week. I'm so grateful because I don't think I could have survived a repeat of last week. 

Preschool begins

Unlike many moms, I don't have a first day of preschool picture. The first day was a half day and I stayed with Touma the whole time. I understand that with some kids it is probably necessary. For Touma, it just screwed up his nap schedule.

Touma did an 8 week stint in daycare after Raina was born. He loved it and maybe cried once when I left him! He also did a week of summer session at his current preschool. He also loved it and had a little adjustment, but nothing major. 

The two half days if preschool have really screwed up our rhythm this week. He loves going and just when he's completely settled (but not tired!), I have to pick him up. He's been an absolute nightmare both days. I'm really hoping that Friday, the first day of regular schedule, is better. I really need to end my week on a good note!

The hard days of Touma

Not sure who has had bad days more lately, me or Touma. To be honest, my bad day is usually caused by exhaustion and dealing with a disagreeable toddler. Touma is just the disagreeable toddler. 

This past week, we had two days that were punctuated by many tantrums. Thursday, he wanted a soccer ball. There were two to play with at play group. He wanted the one a friend had. To the tune of throw himself on the floor and rolling around crying. T doesn't do that sort of thing all that much, so it really was a sight to behold. Afterwards he perked up and wasn't in such a bad mood. Yay. He still got a pretty early bedtime.

Friday, I had CPR training. He got to play outside with other kids and have a great time. BUT he only got an hour or less nap in the stroller. Cue really crappy afternoon... Full of tears. I did film some of his antics and tried to snap him out if it using the footage. It did not work. At all. 

Saturday is always better because I don't deal with everything alone, but still it was a rough week.

Sleep, wherefore art thou, sleep

This week has been epically bad for sleep. The worst part is that I can't exactly point to one cause as to why. If I could, it might be easy to fix. 

1) Shimon is getting home earlier. 

When he was leaving the office at 10 or 11, it was easy to just go to bed. He'd get home so late that there was no point in staying awake. He'd only come home, shower, and go to bed anyway.

2) Little girl has a cold.

She has a cold and is waking twice instead of once at night. It wouldn't seem  like a big deal, but that extra waking has found us both falling asleep on the tatami at around 4am. She stays asleep, while I wake up super sore in the morning.

3) Toddler T hasn't decided to sleep until a certain time consistently. Generally speaking T wakes up at 6 or later. I can live with that. But then there's the occasional 5am wake up call if "Mama mama." This week that 5am conveniently fell in line with the Workd Cup final. So I didn't mind waking up. Problem? I haven't caught up on any sleep all week.

4) Being stupid. 

This one is all me. I should go to bed when all the crap is done around the house. That could be as early as 9. But do I?? No. I watch TV. Or work on class work for my online class. I usually do both. Then, by the time Shimon's almost home it seems silly to go to bed. So I wait for him.

Which lands me in the trouble I'm in now. I wake up feeling like a pile of poo. Feel that way most of the day. Go to bed feeling that way. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

Next week, I vow to get to bed earlier. But for now, I'll just have to do my best to make it through the weekend.

Wow, I look "special."

The No-good, very bad day

Yesterday I had to take Raina to the doctor. She has a slight cough that hasn't gotten better on its own. So, we had to go.

This is the first time that I had to take Raina and Touma to a doctor's office. I wasn't particularly looking forward to it. 

We arrive a bit before 11am, there weren't many people waiting. (In Japan, doctor's offices are mostly first come, first served. No appointments.) Good timing, I thought to myself. 

We got in and I filled paperwork out and waited about 10 minutes to see the doctor. Touma was not really behaving himself, but the staff were good about keeping him busy looking at books. That is, until Raina was done with the doctor. Then it was back to me chasing after him. Yeah, that was not fun. And he continued to be somewhat of a pill.

Then it was time to get the prescription filled. The pharmacy was close. Got there and was going to have Touma stay in the stroller. But there was a water cool. And a cup dispenser. He NEEDED out. 

It was actually good that I did as filling the prescription took longer than expected. He dispensed a cup every time he wanted a drink. 4 cups in less than 10 minutes. :( Finally!! Prescription is ready! Touma is not. Pharmacist gives me stickers to bribe him. They don't really work. We leave the pharmacy (step outside the door). I continue to struggle to get him in. Finally I forcefully put him in. He cries and yells.

We leave the building. Touma is crying the whole way. Old lady tries to "help." She just annoys me. I head to the supermarket.

Inside the door we run into a lady who works at the local playroom. She offers to stay with Touma as I run and get us lunch! Excellent timing!! I come back, with a sandwich for Touma and find he's calmed down. Yay!

By the time we got home, Touma was asleep. Raina was awake. I was exhausted. The rest of the day was not bad per se, just exhausting. It could not end quickly enough. 

  

New discovery!

I had no idea that blogger had a mobile app! I have a feeling that I'll post more pictures and tell a few more stories. Fingers crossed anyway!

So here are some pictures...

Smiley Raina! She's laying on a gorgeous quilt that was specially made for her. 

I don't want to be in this picture, Mom! Neither of these guys look particularly excited to have their picture taken. 

Here's to keeping up with posts!

Baby Raina has arrived

Even though most everyone has probably seen the Facebook update and followed some of what's happened since March... I think I need to make an update on my blog. Baby Raina Alice Yamamori has officially arrived.

She was born March 25th, 9 days after her predicted due date. We've had a bit of time adjusting (I will dedicate some future blogs to that topic), but Touma is gradually getting the hang of being a big brother. I am slowly getting the hang of being a mother of two. Shimon is slowly getting the hang of his new job and tries to spend as much time with us as possible. He's also getting the hang of being a father of two, but he's still better equipped for Touma than for Raina right now. It's only been two months, so I'll cut him some slack. ;-)

Morning after March 26th.

Look at the rosy red cheeks!

Now that things are settling down, I'll try to update with things that have happened over the last few months and keep on going strong through the summer. :-)

Poo

So, a few weeks ago a friend was telling me how her 10 month old pooed in the bath when her husband was in charge and how big of a mess it was. Needless to say, I laughed. A lot.

Well, as a consequence of that laugh... this week it was my turn.

In Japan, Touma and I do bath time together. And these days since I'm huge, it feels so nice to have some of the weight off due to buoyancy and all that. Goofing around in the bath with Touma is pretty fun. However, it was getting to be close to the end of bath time when I noticed a "floaty." Thank goodness I realized what it was and got toys, Touma, and myself out of the tub pretty quickly. If I hadn't noticed right away, things could have been much worse!

Luckily, I got the tub drained and cleaned and all toys washed and disinfected. I re-washed Touma and I as well. In general, the "poo in the tub" incident wasn't so bad. Just wish it had happened to Shimon and not to me! :-)

The Final Stretch

I've entered the 38th week of pregnancy and we're down to the home stretch. Baby could, in theory, come any time. Though the reality is that for the past two doctor's appointments the doctor has checked to see what's going on and came back with the same answer: nothing's changed. :-)

This time around I am more ready for this whole pregnancy thing to be over. Does that really mean I'm prepared for the long nights and the newborn cries? Not necessarily. What I do know is that I am ready to have a slimmer, lighter body again. I have seemingly forgotten how "fun" the end of pregnancy can be. Instead, I just feel heavy and irritable. All. The. Time. Poor Touma... I am much too short with him and don't really mean to be.

The best time of day for me is bath time. In Japan, generally parents and kids actually sit in the bath together and enjoy the bathing experience. SO... I take full advantage of sitting in a large tub full of warm water, Water is magic. It's the only time I feel fairly normal and my heavy body doesn't seem so heavy. Or course bath time doesn't last forever, which means that I have to come back to the reality of my heavy body at some point.

Today, I did some major "getting ready for baby" nesting. I washed a bunch of baby clothes and rearranged storage so that now there's more than enough storage for the new baby clothes and for cloth diapers for both kids. I still have to get drawer "locks" so that Touma can't make a big mess when he wakes up in the middle of the night, but I think that can be remedied tomorrow.

We are officially less than 2 weeks from my due date. I wouldn't mind being one day late (my due date is March 16th), but any later than that and I'll be annoyed. Touma was three days late, but who knows what will happen this time around. The doctors at my clinic keep saying that I need to get out and walk, but my main excuse is,.. how am I supposed to walk around a bunch (I walked for 2-3 hours sometimes when I was pregnant with Touma) with an active toddler? I do chase Touma a lot, so at this point that will have to be enough. :-)

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On Maternity Leave

Yep, that's right.. I'm officially on maternity leave. I was actually on leave from January 30th. In Japan, maternity leave begins 6 weeks before baby is born and end 8 weeks after. BUT after maternity leave, there's something called childcare leave (almost everybody takes it) that lasts about a year (depends on each person and whether there are slots in daycare or not).

The funny thing is that I got the flu the last day I was meant to teach (it started 2 days before that). So I missed saying goodbye to half of the students I've been teaching AND didn't get to turn in all of the graded papers for those classes.

All I have to say is that maternity leave would be great if I had someone to watch Touma for a few hours a couple times a week. Just so I could get some things done... like: get a hair cut, go to the dentist, get a massage (or even just see a chiropractor!), and sort out baby stuff. I have lots of baby clothes to wash and sort and try to figure out. But with a little dude around it is really hard. He likes to "help" sort. He also wants a lot of mommy attention. Then by the time he is in bed... I'm exhausted so all I want to do is veg (ie watch the Olympics) or go to bed early.

With all of this extra time, I've also become a lot less forgiving when it comes to some of Japan's "idiosyncracies."Such as the fact that daycare is publicly provided... except it is in very short supply in urban areas like Tokyo and Yokohama. BUT the government of Japan keeps spouting all sorts of nonsense about people needing to have more babies (the birthrate is well under replacement levels in Japan) and yet they do nothing to help people actually WANT to have more babies. Instead, there's just a lot of rhetoric and posturing and money always gets funneled into elderly programs because those are the voting constituents that seem to "count."

Then there is public space. Libraries are less friendly places for kids in Japan than shopping malls. Yup. The kids areas of libraries always have big signs about being quiet and they have no walls separating the kids section from the other sections. So... when toddlers make noise, as they are apt to do, a staff member (usually trying to speak very broken English and acting as if they are "sorry") comes over to kick you out. At the same library this has happened twice. Once because a grouchy old man kept complaining about the little ones, despite the fact that there were loads of open seats in quieter areas, and once this past week. My friend and I had corralled our kids in an area so they wouldn't run around and they couldn't escape. Yes, they were a bit noisy, but when the lady came over, she didn't actually identify the issue right away (the noise) and her explanation was that the area is "public space" so we needed to take our kids elsewhere. Apparently being taxpayers in Japan doesn't actually allow you to use a facility if you might have kids. I also asked if anyone had actually complained about the noise and she said no one had and that the staff had decided to tell us to move somewhere else. Other solutions she offered: corral the kids in the nursing room and let them be noisy there (um... a room with a chair and a changing table for two active toddlers to "run around" in?) or go back to the main kids area where there's nothing stopping them from running all over the place, into other sections and actually disturbing MORE people. So, I had a little go at her, said that Japan pretends to care about kids, but they don't actually care at all. Then we took the kids outside, where Touma threw snow and climbed the outside steps until it was time to actually go home.

So, maternity leave is just more time to try to entertain Touma and try not to lose my mind at the stupid rules and annoyances that make up everyday life in Japan. I think I'll take Touma to our regular library (smaller and closer to our house), where so far we haven't been told off yet when he runs all over the place.

Post-move and holiday update

On December 15th, we moved to a new apartment. Between the move and the holidays, I haven't had time to post anything! These things happen. :-)

Because we moved right before the holidays, Christmas didn't get the build up that I generally like to have. Not much in the way of baking and very little in the way of decorating. It was a little sad, but at least we are moved and we won't be doing that again for a very long time! (We have vowed to not rent ever again after this! We'll see if that still holds up in a few years.)

Touma and I were lucky enough to be invited to my friend Melanie's for Christmas dinner and the afternoon. Touma had a lot of fun running around after big kids (ages 8, 6, and 5) and it was nice to not have to spend the day with just the two of us.

Christmas night we left for my mother-in-laws for the New Year. We were gone nearly two weeks. Touma had a great time and I mostly did too. However, I do believe that two weeks away from home and sleeping on the floor on a futon was just too much. Since this is the last time we'll be able to visit for awhile, it was ok, but I'm not going to do "floor sleeping" while pregnant ever again! It's just not comfortable!

I will have to post some pictures from our time away. We really did have fun. Touma learned to like strawberries... picked straight from the vine! We went on a strawberry picking expedition and my goodness those berries were delicious. The small farm had a lot of interest in picking over the new year, so we could only pick and eat, but not take any home. That was fine by me! I have never had such delicious berries before. YUM!

We also went to the aquarium in Shimonoseki. Touma's favorite part was probably the ramp that went all the way down to the bottom of the big penguin tank. He ran all the way down and just loved every moment. He did enjoy the fish and the penguins, but the ramp was seriously the highlight. Give him a few years and the dolphins and fish might start to win his attention.

Hope everyone else had a lovely holiday season! Due to the upheaval around the holidays I took a break from cards of any sort. Next year, I'll pick it up again.