Great Expectations

Lately, I've started to get frustrated with all the little things in my life and my children's lives that I am working toward but to which I never seem to be getting any closer. I decided to make a list of things I wanted accomplished by the time we wrap up 2014. I figured a little over 3 months is a perfect amount of time to clear up some of these little things and get some larger things in motion.

Personally, there are a ton of things I would like get better about by the new year but at the top of the list is blogging more often, setting a consistent and committed schedule for studying Japanese, being more consistent and dedicated about my exercise regimen, and to begin teaching myself to play the ukulele. Basically all of this revolves around finding more time in my life and not about lack of motivation or desire. I am still working on finding a solution to balancing all of the things I wish to do in the tiny scraps of time that are left over between caring for the children, the house, and working. I don't really do extremely structured routines and time slots, but it almost seems that I will have to start adopting some kind of strict daily planning to fit what I want to in my life.

Though my personal expectations are usually on hyper drive, I am definitely no Tiger Mother. I think my expectations of the kids are fairly realistic but sometimes I am overwhelmed by the sheer amount of life skills that I need to teach them before the can possibly be confident and capable human beings. For the time being, William and Rosie are the lucky ones since I don't really have any grand expectations of them at all. At least not anything that I have felt like I am slacking off as a parent about. William is speaking a lot more now, in both English and Japanese, not that I really had any control over that anyway, and Rosie is finally starting to sleep consistently through the night with very minimal effort on my part to put her to sleep. Both of them eat fairly well and healthily and William has been potty trained for over a year and Rosie is too young to start. Nothing to do for the time being but to watch them grow.

Meanwhile, Theo's English reading ability is still pretty shaky. We usually try to fit in 15 minutes of English reading/writing practice into the evening on weekdays but some days he just has so much Japanese and math homework (sometimes over an hour of work in first grade!) that his attention span is just shot by the end without tacking on any extra. Also, Dustin has decided he doesn't have the patience to teach him and signed off on the whole endeavor which means that nothing happens on evenings that I am working. I really wish that someone could just take this cup from me, but seeing as Theo gets no English in school that is not an option. In the past few weeks he has been improving significantly so I am pretty hopeful that in the next three months he will be off and running and reading independently. I really can't wait until he discovers how magical and wonderful the world of books really is!

Theo's homework stack

Another thing on Theo's list was teaching him to ride his bike without training wheels. Theo and I put in a lot of bike riding time over the last half of summer break, going on one hour bike rides each day, but I never got around to actually taking the training wheels off until two days ago. It doesn't help that Theo is the size of an average 9 year old here, so on our bike rides we would often get some person giving him a strange look and one old man even told me to take his training wheels off already. Sigh. On Monday we heading to our neighbourhood park sans training wheels and on his first try he kept his balance and cruised around the park with no problems at all. He was absolutely brimming with pride and self accomplishment and kept singing Queen's "Bicycle" at the top of his lungs.


I'll let you know how many of my personal goals I actually crossed off my list by the new year!

Everything's Coming up Rosie

One year ago today, we welcomed a new member into our family. Rosemary has filled our home with even more love, life, and laughter than we could imagine.

1 day old

Since she was born, I have felt very distinctly like our family is full and complete. Maybe I needed just a tad more noise and mayhem in my life, or a bit of pink to offset the blue, or maybe the interaction between three children just feels more natural for me having grown up in a three child household myself. Whatever the case is, Rosie was meant to be and we celebrate and cherish her. 

She has grown and changed so much in the past twelve months and we are still getting to know this little person more day by day.

1 month

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

6 months

7 months

8 months

9 months

10 months

11 months

1 Year! 

This is what we have learned about her in the past year: she is full of spunk and life and thrives when surrounded by her family, especially her doting brothers. She is very happy to be the third child, since her favorite pastime is to watch her brothers crazy antics while laughing and clapping in delight. When she is not chasing after her brothers or exploring her world, she loves being held and cuddling.

She is always trying to do what her brothers are doing, sitting, crawling, walking, and copying their sounds earlier than I would have guessed. She also has a stubborn streak and a bit of a temper. Not too sure who she got that from!

Me too!

She loves the outdoors and finding a good patch of mud or sand to get dirty in (and eat) or a plant to rip up (and eat). I can't wait until she is old enough to put that to use helping me in the garden! 

Rosemary, you are loved and we can't wait to see what the future has in store for you! 

Halloween 2013

Wow! I can't believe this is already our third Halloween in Japan and that Rosie is about the same age that William was when we first arrived. How things change and time flies!

As I wrote about last year, Halloween is definitely not celebrated the same way in Japan as it is in North America, but we do have a few friends close by that help us make it special for our kids. Tonight we went off trick or treating with a few of our friends and their children. I actually like that we only have four stops that we can make. This means way less candy to ration out to the kids, way less temptation for me to "help" them eat their candy, and we are finished a back home in time for their 8 o'clock bed time.  Since the kids have never experienced the kind of large scale trick or treating that goes on back home, there is absolutely no disappointment.

I decided to take a few spooky shots with Rosie and William before the jack o'lantern became old and mushy. Poor Theo was at yochien, so he didn't get to join in on the photographic fun until he came home.

Rosie's costume was something I whipped up in 30 minutes with some pieces of felt, a bit of stuffing, and a hand towel.

In case you are confused about what she is supposed to be, she is baby maguro nigiri. Yummy!

The boys' costumes were much more traditional Halloween material: Batman™ and Superman™

and I was the Black Rabbit of Inle.

Off to get some candy!

At one point, I thought an old man was about to crash his bike because of the long, over the shoulder double take he was doing of Theo's costume. I can only imagine what he was thinking of this tiny little Batman, roaming the dark streets of Fukuyama.

Then back home to dump out the candy buckets and survey the stash.

Fun times and candy were had by all!

Canadian Thanksgiving 2013

In March, we were happy to welcome a Costco to our capital, Hiroshima City. Before its opening, there were certain foods that either we couldn't get at all, like turkey, quality cheese, pecans or cranberry juice to name a few, and some foods that were only sold in small amounts and egregiously overpriced, like oatmeal, flour, and coffee. I was, however, sad to see that not all of the products sold back home made it to the shelves in Japan. I would have been so happy to see whole wheat flour, hemp hearts, quinoa, flax, basically any healthy whole grain, dried beans, and some kind of breakfast cereal that wasn't cornflakes and Cheerios. You can't have it all, I guess.

Unfortunately in some ways and fortunately in others, we live about two hours from Hiroshima City and don't really get the opportunity to visit more than a handful of times in a year. In early October all five of us packed into a friend's car to drive to Costco and pick up some Thanksgiving essentials. We were joined on the big day of feasting by our neighbours and their one year old daughter and our good friends the Oshimas.

Making apple pie

Can you believe that I fit a 6 ½ kilo turkey into this oven? 

Getting ready to sit down to our feast 

William was overwhelmed with delicious scents and smells

Theo and our neighbour's daughter waiting mostly patiently to eat 

No Thanksgiving is complete without apple and pumpkin pie! 

Every year that we are here, cooking for holiday meals seems to get easier and easier. I am not sure if it is because I am fast becoming used to my tiny, nearly counter-less kitchen, because I am just not putting as much pressure on myself to make the "perfect" holiday meal, or because I am starting to invite more people and delegating what dishes I want them to bring along. Whatever the case may be, this ended up being a fun day with friends, family, and yummy food! Until next year turkey!

Kochi

Here, at last, is the final catch up on of some of the traveling we did when my in-laws were out.

The first weekend in April, we packed our bags yet again and made our way to Shimanto City in Kochi Prefecture. Seeing as Kochi is the birthplace of Anpanman, what better way to get there (and make our children's day) than taking the Anpanman train! William, who is especially obsessed with all things Anpanman at the moment, was thrilled beyond words.

It takes about 4 hours by train from Fukuyama to Shimanto and so the kids were somewhat bribed into good behaviour with the purchase of these Anpanman themed bento.

Theo modeling his bento lid

We only remembered to take a shot of William's bento after he had taken a couple of chomps
out of Anpanman's head

We wanted to have a chance for Obaasan and Ojiisan to get to know Dustin's parents a bit better, so we invited them along with us for the weekend. We were able to book this fabulous house in the middle of nowhere for the time we were out. It is a model eco home built almost entirely, inside and out, with local cypress and smelled absolutely amazing! 

Front of the house

and the back

Grandma and the boys peeking down from the second story balcony

Waiting to eat some yummy nabe

Theo and I hunted down this 5 cm monster for our more squeamish
housemates and deposited him outside

The gorgeous all cypress bathroom

Even more amazing than the house itself were the views of the mountains and the Shimanto River. Directly across from the house was this large display of koinobori strung over the river for Children's Day. 

 Enjoying a walk in the sunshine with Grandma

Trying, and failing, to find fossils in the rocks

We went on a tour of the river on this traditional boat. What you can't see from the photo is that the whole interior of the cabin has tatami flooring, so everyone's shoes were left outside on the deck.

Theo soon made a new best friend when the boatman let him control the motor. Theo sat with one  hand firmly planted on the man's thigh and the other on the tiller, and giving us all a choppy, bumpy ride for most of the trip. I think he was a little surprised (and probably annoyed after a while) to find out that Theo could speak Japanese. There was an endless stream of prattle and questions from Theo about everything and anything he saw.

BFF

The day ended with a barbecue in which Theo forsook all of his previous claims that he was an herbivore. 

And here are some final random pictures of our adventures:

Theo checking out a rock slide that was blocking part of the road. There were also mountain monkeys on the road which we weren't quick enough to get pictures  of.

Dustin, the hunter-gatherer, finding the biggest bamboo shoots the forest had to offer

 And some beautiful flowers that were blooming earlier in Kochi than in Hiroshima

Azalea

Wisteria