In With the New

What do I see in store for us in the next year? For the most part I don't know, we haven't planned any career changes, moves, or trips out of the country so it should be a pretty stable, calm year. Except for one not so minor detail.

In the beginning of June, we will be receiving the final (yes, we will be making sure it is final) expansion to our family. I found that making the decision to have our first child was so easy. Probably due to naivety and a love for children, Dustin and I jumped in with both feet and didn't really spend much time obsessing over the details. We thought it would be great to have a baby, so 9 months later we had one. With William, we spent a lot more time stalling, postponing, and getting cold feet about having another child. We knew we didn't want Theo to be an only child but it took a long time before we were ready to jump back into taking care of a young baby again. For this new baby, we spent nearly a year agonizing over whether we should or shouldn't have a third. 

Truthfully, I never really intended on having three children. A family of four is quite simple and neat. You can avoid the self-centered and lonely life of an only child (sorry if I have offended any only children out there) but still fit your family into a small-ish car. Also, you aren't outnumbered by children in your home. Regardless of this logic and all the reasons not to have a third, I felt deep down that we were meant to have one more child. I knew that I would never regret the decision to have a third child but that I might forever regret that we didn't. I know this sounds like over emotional, hormone driven logic and pretty uncharacteristic my normal outlook on the world, but I can't really explain it any other way. Also, the decision to have a third child has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I have two sons. It absolutely makes no difference to me whether this baby is a boy or a girl. I am actually pretty touchy if anyone implies or assumes that we are only "trying for a girl". We were trying for a baby, not specifically a girl, so there! :) 

Our newest addition at 16 weeks

I will be having the baby here in Fukuyama. I would like to return to Canada for the birth but the complication of having to take the two children back with me, leaving Dustin for a few months, Dustin not being able to be at the birth or see his new child for a few weeks, and the cost involved makes this impossible. 

This week marks the halfway point of my pregnancy and hopefully the second half will be much better than the first. One of these days I will do a post on my experiences being pregnant here and the differences I have noticed between prenatal care in Canada vs. Japan.

Germany in Japan

As I was looking over some of our photos from the year so far, I realized that there were a few little trips we made that I neglected to blog about.

In the end of April, we went with some friends of ours to a  German village themed park in Okayama Prefecture. It is called Doitsu no Mori, or the German Forest. It was a beautifully warm  spring day and the little "village" was so picturesque. It is in a very rural part of the prefecture surrounded on all sides by rolling green mountains. It took us about an hour and a half to drive there from Fukuyama. When approaching the front gate, you already feel like you have stepped into another country. Except for the katakana on all the signs, that is.

One thing I love about Japan is that I very often find plaques on trees and other plants indicating what species they are. Since I am always trying to learn what species grow commonly in our area, it is nice to see these signs. Have I ever mentioned how much joy I get from binomial nomenclature?

The village square, surrounded by restaurants, bakeries, and shops.

There was a lot of open space for the children to run around and burn off some energy.

There was also an astroturf toboggan hill that was fun for both the kids and us.

Next we headed over to the petting zoo where there were goats, sheep, rabbits, pot bellied pigs and miniature horses. William was not too sure about the goats and spent the first five minutes watching them from a safe distance, tense and silently terrified. 

He kept this guarded expression throughout almost our whole visit to the petting zoo area.

Meanwhile, Theo could have spent all day there taking care of "his" bunnies.

We found a field of blooming canola which was a very familiar sight to us Manitobans. It turns out that they think of canola as a quintessential spring flower. I have never seen it blooming in Manitoba before July!

There were a few restaurant options for lunch, but since the German and European style restaurants were packed full of people, we decided to have Japanese style barbecue instead.

Yum!

Then off to let the kids enjoy a few more things, like bumper cars,

driving a bus,

taking a ride around the park on a little train,

and jumping around in a bouncy castle.

Finally, after the children were good and tired, we were able to enjoy some more adult sights. There were dozens of beautiful flower beds fully blooming with spring flowers.

A fun day was had by all. I would really recommend this park to anyone with children, but I might have found it very dull if I had gone only with adults. There is a bit of shopping and the flowers are pretty, but most of the attractions are for the 12 and under crowd. 

Mr. Mischief

William, like many babies his age, has become quite skilled at destructing the world around him and driving us insane in the meantime. It doesn't help that he loves an audience and Theo thinks every one of his infuriating antics is absolutely hilarious. He also doesn't really understand the word "no" yet or at least it doesn't give us the response that we are actually looking for. Here is a list of a few grievances we are facing at the moment:

1. Putting everything in his mouth. A lot of babies do this, but Theo never really did so we are in uncharted, frustrating territory,

2. Destroying (and eating) any plant or flower that comes within his reach. This moved into my top ten annoyances this week as he snapped one of my tomato plants in half and dug up all of my dill seedlings. I am toying with the idea of installing a deer fence around the garden until he gets older.

3. His obsession with shoes. Multiple times a day I catch him with a shoe or slipper that he managed to get a hold of and of course put in his mouth. Dustin and I have already decided that once this oral fixation stage is finished, we need to take him in for a good deworming.

4.Pulling the caps off of markers and eating the tips. Since Theo is always drawing, this happens way too often for my liking.

5. Pulling the front of his pants and diaper down so that just his little bits are dangling out, thus rendering his diaper ineffective.  I catch him in this liberated state at least 3 times a day. I am thinking of devising a system of diaper suspenders before I have to clean up too many puddles of pee.

6. Throwing things out of our second story window and balcony into the parking lot below. This was more annoying a few weeks ago, but since I zip-tied fine netting over the bars to stop him, my trips downstairs to collect all the odds and ends thrown down have lessened. 

He has an uncanny ability to scan his surroundings and detect any weakness in the baby proofing defenses. Accidentally left a cord plugged into the wall? Within minutes he is there, sucking on it and most likely shocking himself. Forgot to close the safety lock on the fridge, cabinets, or trashcan? Within seconds the cabinets are empty, the eggs have been pulled from the fridge and dropped on the floor, nasty things have been pulled out the trashcan and strewn about, or he is sucking on a shoe. I know this curious and exploratory phase is a natural part of brain development, but sometimes I feel like placing him in a sterile, white padded room where he can do the least harm. I am really looking forward to the day when he understands commands!

Sera Park

On Saturday, we went for a trip with some friends of ours to a park in Sera Town, which is about an hour drive north west of Fukuyama. We had never been there, or even heard of this town before, but our friends, who have become like an adoptive set of grandparents for the boys, were certain that we all would have a fun time.  The weather started off pretty dreary, with little spatters of rain, but by the time we arrived in Sera it was warm and sunny with blue skies.

It was obvious that we were much higher up in the mountains since the sakura are falling from the trees in Fukuyama and the buds hadn't even opened in Sera Park. There was a large and very creative playground area for the children to play in and quite a few acres of hilly green space.

This is a view of the playground area where the kids spent most of the morning exploring and playing:

Surrounding the playground was open recreational space. You can see that all of the cherry trees are still naked.

William making new friends and checking out all of the fun playthings

There were even three miniature ponies. You could pay 30 yen (37 cents Canadian) to feed them a dish of carrots or 100 yen (about 1.25$ Canadian) to go for a ride. I don't know much about the nutritional needs of ponies, but it seems like a steady stream of children feeding them carrots all day is a bad idea. They seemed happy enough though.

Theo spent a lot of time riding the spinning saucer. I would have loved it as a kid, but now it made me queasy just watching.

After an hour or so of playing, we all stopped to enjoy a delicious picnic that our friends made for us. There was onigiri, barbecued beef, vegetables, sausages, pickled radishes, spaghetti, potato salad and omelet rolls. It was so, so good!

After lunch, William went down for a nap so Dustin, Theodore and I went for a hike around the rest of the park. Like a true explorer, Theo's first goal was to find an appropriate walking stick which he called his "wizard's staff".

On our walk we came across a man flying a super long and colourful kite.

The surrounding mountains were extremely beautiful, especially since there was not a sign of human habitation for as far as the eye could see. 

At the top of a nearby hill, we found another, smaller playground. Theo clambered around pretending to be the Spider King and that ladybugs where invading his spider castle. I don't think he will ever be bored.

We also found a super long slide.

Eventually William woke up and we decided to head home, stopping by the Sera Winery on our way. I assumed there would just be tours of the vineyard and wine tasting, but it seems they have really put a lot of efforts into attracting tourists. There was live music, a farmers market, a miniature steam train that the children could ride, all manner of desserts flavoured like wine for sale, and of course, many different wines to try and buy. To top it all off, we arrived just in time for a mochi throwing event.

In the end it was four happy adults and two very tired and content children that piled into the car for the trip back to Fukuyama. What a fabulous way to spend a Saturday. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Oshima!

Yochien Spring Concert

Last week we had the pleasure of going to yet another yochien performance. The new school year begins in April, so I believe this was an end of the year presentation.

Theo and the other first years sang and played a couple of songs on instruments. I was really surprised that Theo didn't do anything really embarrassing. I was expecting him to run off the stage, knock something over, or have loud outbursts at every quiet moment. Though this usually adds a bit of humor to an otherwise long and boring performance, the problem is, being the only foreign child in the whole kindergarten, it is impossible to pretend that he's not ours. That's not to say he didn't find the color changing background much more interesting than what his teacher was doing, but it could have been worse. One thing about kindergartens here is that the children are already massively talented at such an early age... I didn't even realize 3-5 year olds were capable of this kind of thing. Theo actually did a really good job and we are proud of the progress he is making in school. He has probably had the most difficult time adapting to his new life and I think he is overcoming these odds admirably.

This is Theo and the other first year children performing "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" by Ray Heatherton. I have always associated this song with Christmas. Nonetheless, I thought it was great that Theo performed this song since it is one I remember singing when I was in kindergarten. Keep in mind as you watch this that this is being performed by 3 and 4 year old children.

A Blessing and a Curse

On Friday, as I waited for Theo's kindergarten bus to arrive, I noticed some men removing all of the tatami from a fifth floor apartment across the street. It was really neat to watch them lower each mat down  on a rope with a hook at the end from the balcony. While enjoying this new sight, I was able to reflect for a few minutes on how common tatami has become in my life in the last six months.

For those who don't live in Japan or have never visited, tatami is a thick mat of rice fiber and woven straw that is used as flooring in at least one of the rooms of a typical Japanese apartment or house. Each mat is about 2.5 - 5.5 cm thick and is usually 90 cm wide by 180 cm long. Since tatami size is fairly uniform, often people will tell you the size of a room or house by how many tatami are in it. In our apartment, the small kitchen and bathroom have wood flooring, but all of the other living space has tatami.

I still remember the feeling of stepping onto our tatami for the first time. It was firmer and denser than I expected, but still had a bit of give and springiness to it. Unfortunately, I was a bit dazed after traveling with the children and not sleeping in over 36 hours, so I wasn't able to properly savour the moment.

This is not our apartment; our tatami has never looked
this good!

In some ways, having tatami in our apartment is great. It is soft and silky smooth under your feet and Theo and William can play directly on it without needing a rug or play mat to cushion them. In the winter it does not get cold like the wood flooring in our kitchen and doesn't heat up too much in the summer. We are able to sleep on futons on the floor without needing tons of padding or losing too much heat to the floor. It also has a really nice, almost sweet, grassy smell that reminds me of fresh hay or straw. I also think that the shimmery green and gold cloth that binds the sides of each mat is quite pretty.

In saying this, I have come to loathe tatami, at least in this phase of my life. It would be fabulous in a bedroom, but we have it everywhere. This means every little mess our kids make, every piece of food dropped, every drooly patch from William, and worse lands straight on the highly absorbent, easily stained, and incredibly difficult to clean floor. We have put an area rug underneath our table to protect the tatami from inevitable foods spills each meal, but it still doesn't protect it from the occasional glass of water, juice, or even worse, milk, that gets tipped over by the elbows of our clumsy son. So far I have had the pleasure of cleaning all forms of food and drink, vomit, urine, and poop from our tatami. The only uncharted territory for me is blood and wine, but it is only a matter of time. I have become insanely jumpy about anything spilling on it, but short of trading our children in for robots, I can't think of any way of preventing the occasional unforeseen accident or emergency.

Our own little tatami model showing off the silky soft
qualities of our floor.

I have developed a sort of science when it comes to cleaning, disinfecting, deodorizing, and removing stains from our tatami. It seems to be working for the most part, or at least our tatami looks no worse than it did when we arrived. The good news is that the tatami was fairly old and worn when we arrived, so I am not quite as neurotic about it as I could be. I really wonder how other moms with babies and young children handle life with tatami? Any advice?

For anyone interested in the tatami making industry, and how and how often mats are changed, I found this photo essay by Keith Graff very interesting and informative.

Milestones

It may not be readily obvious all the time, but I do actually try to limit the number of posts I write that center exclusively on our kids. I recognize that children and their antics are always much more interesting to the parents and don't want to bore too many people. I know that unavoidably our blog will be pegged as a mommy blog, but for those who couldn't care less about how cute our kids are, I try to capture the goings on of our life on a broader scale. After that disclaimer, here is a whole post about what the kids have been up to lately:

For Theo's birthday, our crafty neighbours made a really cool Mario pinata. Theo had a great time bashing at it but eventually we gave up on the blind fold as his swings became more and more wild. William seemed just as enthusiastic as Theo did when candy started to spill from the hole he bashed in Mario's head (wow, I didn't realize how vicious this whole thing was!).  The next day, we were able to have more fun by turning the pinata into a helmet/mask. It's fantastic to have good neighbours!

William was pretty absorbed in checking out all of the fallen goodies

"It's-a me, Mario!"

Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper by Theo

Theo's new favorite past-time has been drawing in his sketch book. I absolutely love this new focus of his because every afternoon he happily doodles away for an hour or two instead of bounding around, destructing the apartment, and making his brother upset. I am always happy when my children develop skills that make them more independent and less demanding of my one on one attention. I think the reason he is so interested in drawing is that he has recently hit a big milestone in fine motor skills and hand eye coordination. All of a sudden he has been able to draw fairly accurate shapes, pictures that are more or less distinguishable for what he says they are (even though the cats have eight legs and resemble spiders with tails), most letters, and even a few hiragana. He seems to have entered into a very sensitive period for learning to write letters and numbers, so I am more than happy to indulge his interest. He has also taken to labeling things in the house, like his brother.

I'm not quite sure what his label is supposed to mean, but William didn't seem to mind it one bit.

Also, despite the chilly temperatures and wind, we have been able to get out on the weekends and discover a few of the nice parks in our area and fly our kite. Once the weather warms up a bit more, I would like to get Theo a little pole so he can learn to fish. Most of the parks in our area are along the river, so it would be easy to teach him at one of these.

Flying the kite from the wind free comfort of the play tube

Making sure that the park pandas get enough bamboo

Meanwhile, William has grown a few more teeth and is able to cruise his way along all of our furniture to dismantle and bite anything he can get his grubby little hands on. He has a remarkably driven curiosity and Theo is always a willing accomplice in his most destructively mischievous acts. Here are a few recent shots of wee Wills:

Pretending to be mild mannered and innocent

Now showing his true personality and his four new sharp teeth

His favorite scrunch faced grin

Samurai in training

...and that is what has been going on in our children's lives in the past couple of weeks.