in february, sasha and tommy had a musical at school. tommy's group (not his whole class) did a dance to a j-pop number, and sasha's class did 'the sound of music'. sasha had the role of maria; she was actually one of four marias! it was long and boring, but also a bit cute, so i am sharing some photos here for you!

in january, there is a holiday celebrating all the 20 year olds who have become adults in japan.  at the yochien my kids go to, they have a 1/4 coming of age day for the five year olds.  it's quite cute, the boys dress up in little tuxes, and the girls wear fluffy dresses.  last january was tommy's chance.

during the ceremony, each child goes to the mike at the front of the stage and makes a little speech.  basically they say what group they are in, their name and what they want to be when they grow up.  most boys want to be ultraman or pokemon.  most girls want to be a worker in a cake shop, or a member of AKB48 (*vomits*).  my son, however, wants to be funny.  that's my boy!

so, this is a holiday usually celebrated in november, but like many things, it seems to be heading towards more commercialization.  seriously, there's the regular 7-5-3, 7 year old girls now have the option of hakama (usually worn by boys and men, and 20 year old women, if they so choose, at their coming of age ceremony...anyway) and i also found some 7-5-3 wear for the new year!  i'm sure if i looked right now i'd find 7-5-3 for spring.  ah well....

when hiro was five, we bought a hakama set, with the intention of using it for tommy.  which we did.  i couldn't find any of the dvds of instructions on how to put on the hakama and kimono, but luckily i found some videos on youtube!  i did a practice run a couple of weeks before we visited the shrine.  i also shleped that thing across the ocean to have some professional pictures taken when we were in the US.  today's photos are from our visit in november.

all through september, the kids wore their sport uniform to school, because they were practicing for the undokai. after the undokai, there were a couple of days where the kids could wear their summer or winter uniform. i realized that i hadn't taken pictures of tommy in his summer uniform, so i thought i better get that done! you may be able to notice that sasha's and tommy's hats are different.

so, on saturday i thought the kindy made an announcement that the first year students didn't have to go to school until the 13th, so i asked yoshi to confirm. he thought, nah, they go to school from monday. so, bright and early monday morning, i got up and made breakfast (this is rare! bad mommy!--i mean about it being rare that i make breakfast.) then i woke tommy and tried to ease him into the day. see, he has been getting up at 8:30 (or later) during the past year, whereas the bus arrived at our house at 8:30. this year the bus stop is around the corner (basically behind our house) so we have to be sure we get there on time! anyway, you can probably guess where this is going. yeah, tommy didn't have school on monday.

he was pretty disappointed (mainly, i think, because he was nervous about getting on the bus and going to school and missing mommy) but i promised him something (can't remember what, now) but got sasha on the bus and tommy back home to change his clothes.

then the three of us walked to hiro's school. our last chance for hiro to 'practice' walking to school. it only took 40 minutes, which isn't too bad. then we walked back. got a nice 5km walk on that day. i even thought of restarting my F2F on monday but then i ate a lot of junk food so i will just put it off to next week....

the weather was fine when we left the house, but on the way home it turned cold. then it got cloudy. thankfully it didn't rain until after we got home. unfortunately i had laundry out so had to quickly bring that in. other than that, it was a pretty normal monday. sasha got home and then we had lunch, then the kids played inside while i tried not to lose it.

just to add to the previous post.


at the beginning of the day


lookin' good, tommy


tommy always makes this face.


(skip past all the photos i didn't take because i didn't have the time or patience to deal with it. next is commentary on how tommy felt about opening ceremonies:)


"i want to see mommy."


dragged down the aisle to end the ceremony.

...but before we get to oita, let's talk about kindergarten. again. tommy is now a preschool student! his entrance ceremony was on saturday (and yet, he doesn't start school until tomorrow--and i have to go, too, for PTA deciding stuff so he'll just be entertained by videos or something.) soon i'll have three children in school and none at home. i really hope to get a handle on this house!

anyway, i got up very early on saturday in order to go to the laundromat to dry a LOT of laundry. (it just really builds up, especially since we have so many, and the washing machine is quite small.) when i got back, it was nearly 8, so everyone else was up. the kids were kinda grazing, but didn't really have breakfast. i couldn't find any information on the ceremony (when it started, for example) so i called the school to find out they were gathering at 9 and starting at 9:30. WELL. got everyone dressed and ready to go, gave each kid a banana and got to the school just in time. there was a lot of waiting around and tommy got pretty bored before it even started. i was going to do the whole ceremony thing with him, but i got tired of his running away from me and flopping all over the floor, so i got yoshi to do it. poor tommy. sitting down and paying attention is not his forte so the ceremony was not all that fun for him. i got a few pictures with yoshi's camera, but i haven't uploaded them yet.

tommy's teacher is sasha's teacher from last year. his kumi is 'yume', which means 'dream'. (did i tell you sasha's kumi? it's 'yuuki', which means 'bold'.) i really hope that tommy enjoys school, and that he grows a lot from this experience!

i did mean to write yesterday, though about what i no longer have any idea. at around 4 in the afternoon yesterday, tommy managed to fall down and split his face open, again. this is the second time he has done this, and the third time i've taken him to the hospital because of a wound in his face. *sigh* the doctor and nurses at the hospital (not the pediatrician) know us now. i'm kinda embarrassed! they let me know that the last time i brought him in was august. *sigh* and they couldn't quite remember who was the previously wounded child the last time we went in (i think it was sasha and the dumbbell on the toe incident. yes, she lost a toenail.)

the kids were going to go out a play for a while, even though it was fucking cold and even snowing a bit (brr, hate that part) but hiro and sasha weren't quite ready to head out the door. tommy, who spends all day at home was out the door and fooling around, picking green tomatoes i think, when he must have tripped on a step and hit his face on the stone wall. he probably had tomatoes in his hands and didn't break his fall--with his hands, anyway. he cut his face right between his eyes, vertically down his nose. my poor baby is totally a scarface now. *sigh*

at the hospital the doctor taped him up instead of a stitch or staple, but tommy managed to peel off the outer bandage and then the tape a couple of hours later. i was on the phone with kuri at the time and was stressing out about something else so tommy pulling the bandages off his face really pissed me off. i called yoshi and asked him to come home asap (which he actually managed to do) and then was off to the hospital again. i have been very diligent about keeping that tape on tommy's face. i am quite determined to keep any scarring to a minimum.

anyway, i'm sure that anything i would have had to say yesterday wasn't all that important, maybe about the open house at the kids' school last month. maybe about the surgery. maybe about the anticipation of christmas and how homesick i feel. ANYWAY, now we have a new wound to take care of, and i'm pretty sure i feel a cold coming on. since i have a work christmas party to participate in tomorrow, i hope it's just my imagination and tomorrow i feel hale and hearty!

hiro and tommy like to pretend they're wearing kimonos when they wrap their baby quilts around their bodies.

we had a fun birthday party this year! only two invited families could make it, but that's ok. so many colds going around this time of year, sadly. anyway, we got together, dressed the kids up in costume, but after pictures were taken, the costumes were off! hiro wouldn't let me take his picture.



then we had cake and ice cream. the birthday boys wore birthday cake hats.





and then we decorated cupcakes!











special thanks to my mom for all the fun things for a halloween party! and also, thank you very much to our friends who made the party so much fun!

today is day one of nablopomo (oh, and that reminds me, i gotta sign up!), so here i am making an attempt to write every day. i should write about the birthday party, but i don't have photos uploaded (and i'm not sure they're any good anyway, but let's get that sorted out before blogging about the party! maybe tomorrow), so i will write about my hospital visit from today.

today was day one of two for tests for when i have surgery. i'm not sure what it was supposed to be for, but i got a drip for an hour. if i had to guess, it was to put something in me to help the echo and CT scans i had afterward. tommy is seriously starting to hate the hospital (who can blame him?), but he was pretty good when we first got to the geika and when i got my blood pressure taken, but during the iv, he started running around and arranging chairs. at the hospital, they have a room just for tenteki (ivs) with a lot of beds and chairs (for family members, i suppose). we had brought a book for tommy, and i had got him some candy, but once the candy was gone and the book had lost its charm, tommy was a lost cause. but he wasn't too bad (though it was obvious he was getting tired) until we got to the scans.

the first scan was some kind of echo. i really don't know what it was, but i got onto this platform that moved around (so i went from a standing position with my hands over my head to a lying position on my stomach! and then back again). tommy was in the changing room because he refused to leave, so a technician stayed with him while i got the scans. when i finished tommy wsn't in the changing room, he was in the hallway throwing a massive tantrum! but we weren't done, because i also had to have a CT scan, and tommy was pretty pissed off! finally i was done, though, and i took him to the snack shop and got some candy (mint mentos, of course he hated them) for him, and juice and crackers for me (i wasn't to eat beforehand). luckily i didn't need medicine because the candy and juice barely kept tommy together before we could leave!

i have to go back tomorrow for the stomach camera. i wonder if i should just get a massive box of chocolate for tommy!

i know, i know, i owe a post. or two. or perhaps more. but, i didn't write them. such is the life of a blog.

i wanted to write a bit about hiro's birthday, but the thing is, we haven't celebrated it yet. tommy's either. i have planned a birthday party for the two of them (didn't really want to do that but here we are, three years after tommy joined us, having a joint party). it's halloween themed (couldn't really help it since it actually *is* halloween, but i never wanted to do that, either. the thing is, it's not really done in japan--though the idea is catching on, i doubt trick-or-treating will ever actually happen--so here we are, a halloween birthday party. *sigh*) i just realized yesterday that all our invited guests are girls. seems like none of my friends and neighbors have boys!! (ok, this isn't strictly true, because kuri has a dumpling of a boy, our neighbor across the street from the neighbor behind us has three boys--but there was no way i was inviting them!!--and i did invite another friend who has two boys, but they couldn't come) good thing we love these girls so much!! anyway, no birthday post, but here's a baby photo of hiro:



and tommy for good measure:




**************

i went to the hospital today. it's been four weeks since i last went, and the doctors asked me to come 1 month after that so...i know it's still october, but i had the day off from japanese class and work, so i went in. the kidney doctor was less than impressed and said to come back in a couple of weeks since it was still october *rolls eyes* yeah, they just want more money from me (i don't know how it works, but the hospitals/clinics here charge you a fee when you go in. they can only charge this fee once a month so i was trying to avoid paying it again, but i guess that just doesn't fly with the kidney doctor. harumph.)

anyway, i went over to internal medicine and the doctor there didn't really have anything for me, either. they did ask me if i had any pain (and to be fair, the kidney doctor also asked me if there was anything i wanted to talk about) but not really, i've been really fabulous, actually, with only a couple of twinges since i got out of the hospital at the beginning of september. BUT, i haven't been to the geka (geika?), the surgeon, so they sent me over to that part of the hospital. the doctor i spoke to was really nice (though he used some japanese i didn't understand *sigh*) and seemed sympathetic about working with my schedule. also, i think i'm looking at a week's stay, a day or two before surgery (maybe??) and then a few days after. i may have misunderstood, though, because i have to go back next week over two days for some kind of test (and it looks like a stomach camera thing. not looking forward to that!!) so that may be the two days he was talking about. hopefully we'll be able to schedule the surgery that will not impact our lives too much. fingers crossed!


********

last night i was reading 'the velveteen rabbit' to the kids when i suddenly realized it was going to make me cry. and yep, sure enough, when the bunny was taken away behind the garden shed, the waterworks started. of course, the kids were asking me why i was crying and all i could say is that it was sad. it's such a touching story and yes, i'm a sappy sack, what can i say? it's really long, though, a rather old story with lots of composition, and tommy was less than impressed. hiro has asked me to read it again tonight, hopefully i got the crying out of my system yesterday!!


*********

today hiro got his birthday book from school. this is something they give the kids on (or near) their birthday. it's a silly little story but there are also sections where the kid puts in their favorite food and animal, what they want to be when they grow up and the most important thing to them. once again (for the third year running), hiro wants to be mommy when he grows up. his most important thing is....mommy. oh my goodness, what a sweet boy!! of course, this morning when he was shouting that he didn't love me anymore, i guess that was a different mommy!

the other night i was on my bed with the computer, just working on a couple of things. it reminded me of a feeling i had several years ago (just before getting pregnant with hiro). i had been snuggled up in the futons, reading a book when i suddenly had a feeling of wanting a child (my child) snuggled up beside me with her own book. it was rather odd, though i thought i one day wanted children, it was the first time i really longed for a child. anyway, there i was with the computer when hiro came in my room. he hopped up on the bed and lay down beside me. then he popped up, grabbed up a blanket and gently put it across my shoulders. it was very sweet, and quite a surprise, since i was having a memory of a dream i had....anyway, hiro is a kind boy and i feel very blessed to have him in my life!


*************

this weekend promises to be very busy, so i will wrap this up. i still need to clean the dining room and bake cupcakes! plus, there will be a halloween party at the school where i just started teaching. my kids will be coming along with me and i never know how they're going to behave! then hopefully we'll have a party on sunday with lots of friends, food and fun. wish me luck!

today is tommy's birthday! he's three already. phew! we had a really low-key day today. there's a birthday party planned for the 31st, so although we wished him a happy birthday and gave him lots of cuddles, no presents for the time being. i don't think he noticed!

in other news, somehow yoshi killed part of the computer and i cannot access iphoto! this is killing me! i have lost ten kilos and want to do a before/after photo on the weightloss blog i am contributing to. *sigh* i guess i'll have to wait! fingers crossed he can work it all out...

the next few days aren't looking good as far as the weather goes. that does not bode well for laundry. weekends are not good days for rain!

i don't think i wrote too much about tommy's staple, which was taken out last month. poor little guy got whacked in the head, and the gap wouldn't stop bleeding. luckily the staple was pretty painless, and someone who knew what they were doing took it off. doesn't he look like some kind of bad boy, though, with his head pierced?! lol

yesterday was an absolutely beautiful summer's day. about damn time, i must say. the best part was the non-humidnesses of it all (yeah, i just totally made up a word) which is a total drag (literally) in japan. there was even a sudden thunderstorm just to keep things exciting (hiro loves to play in the rain. with umbrellas. so not gonna happen with electricity flying around. he already broke his umbrella for the year, too. he was borrowing tommy's. little stinker.)

since it rained i did spare ribs in the oven, with potato salad, rice and something else carbohydrate-y (can't remember now, have mommy's brain) and nothing much fiberlicious. oops. there's tomatoes in the BBQ sauce, right? (stuff from the US, so not a health food but so yummy!) today the kidlets had spaghetti and the sauce has like five kinds of veggies in it, right? yeah, another bottled thing but they love it. i made homemade pizza for myself. the kids don't like my pizza, which is total mom revenge because i totally hated my mom's homemade pizza. weird, hey.

i don't think we're really doing any kind of garden this year. i did buy two tomato plants yesterday, so we'll see. we have some peas or beans out there that need to be staked, and these potatoes just sprouted out of nowhere. i'm almost afraid to harvest them...

tommy is in the two and half year old stage where he hates change. for a while it was a total battle to change him out of his pajamas. then later in the day, take off his clothes for bath. he's better at those things but the true battle is over diapers and jackets. he does NOT NO WAY NO HOW want to change his diaper. he gets some rashes down there and that just makes it worse, because he knows it's going to hurt and he doesn't want to change. but then it just gets painful for him and then....well, i just feel sorry for the little guy. and then the jackets. oh gawd, the jackets. he didn't like the change from long sleeves to short, but i gave away most of his winter stuff during golden week so he has no choice. there were several mornings where he tearfully pulled his sleeves down crying out why didn't they go down?? so i gave him a jacket. for the past month he has been wearing a jacket (or zip up sweatshirt) and he is happy as a clam. our cool spring has made this bearable, but with weather like yesterday and today, he's gonna get miserable. worse yet, yesterday he found his winter coat and insisted on using it. running errands today was nearly fatal (not really) because of how freakin hot it is in the car whenever we got back to it. it should come to no surprise to you right now that tommy is outside playing with hiro wearing only his winter coat and a pull up diaper.

tommy was still sick on wednesday, so i took him to the doctor (i am not cheesed off about this). the doctor determined that it is not a cold, since he doesn't have a fever (or any other symptom for that matter. why is it when you are sick to your stomach--or have the big D--doctors here think you have a cold? this is not something we're taught in the US, and makes the doctor look like a quack! once, many years ago, i went to the doctor because i gave myself food poisoning (thank goodness i was cooking for just myself!). after being 'examined', minimally questioned and about to get some stomach medicine, i coughed. a little cough, almost an 'ahem'. the doctor looked at me and said, 'you have a cold?!' uh, yeah, like two weeks ago, i was over it except for a bit of a cough, but he declared that i had a cold and gave me cold medicine. boy, was i ever pissed off! oops, went on a tangent there and got a bit miffed. ahem.) so we got some meds for his tummy troubles. he still had some D yesterday, but i think it's improving. he's drinking lots of aquarius and running around being two, so i don't think he's seriously ill, though he did sleep for most of yesterday afternoon.

speaking of yesterday, i finally got sasha to the cattle call three year check. i forgot to go in september, forgot or didn't have time to go in october, had something else to do in november and then forgot/kids napped through the one in december. seriously, i don't have time for this shit. it's a waste of time and they do it at 2 in the afternoon, PRIME nap time! now, not all children (esp. three year olds) take naps, but my children do. (you may recall that i missed one of tommy's 18-month checks and complained about it then.) my problem is the community people who run this thing call yoshi and pester him. so, he says we'll go to the next one ('we' being me and the child in question, plus any sibling(s)), then he comes home and tells me we have to go. sheesh. i know that these sorts of things can be good for some people who don't really know anything about their kids, or about illnesses or whatever, but i think that if there was something wrong with my child, i would know about it and take him or her to the doctor! just because we missed this thingy doesn't mean it's the end of the world. *sigh*

so, we're supposed to bring some urine (not going to happen), give them an eye and an ear test. uh, ok. didn't do that either. after we got there someone checked her (laughable. but she is 'normal', whatever.) then we talked to some volunteer health person and did a little check (mostly for vocab and recognition. and i have an aside here, my kids don't understand the word 'shape'. they know circle, square, etc., but they don't know how to answer the question, what shape is this? (hm, i may be too general, i'm pretty sure *hiro* can answer that question now, but not when he was three.) so when we asked sasha what shape is this, she didn't understand. and when i said, 'what's this?', she said the color. when i asked her, 'where is the circle?', she pointed to the circle....anyway, just seemed like a weird way to ask about shapes.) the health volunteer person asked about sasha panicking in new situations. it was kind of...odd...yoshi had filled out the at-home questionnaire and had put in a few notes, so i don't know if he mentioned how attached sasha is to me and shy around strangers, but the way the woman kept pushing the question was weird.

then, it was off to the weight, height, pediatrician and dentist room. i watched while sasha was weighed, and she was nearly 15 kilos. no surprises there. i didn't catch the height, but i think she's nearly 95cm. then perfectly normal at the pedi (even though we didn't have urine, but the doctor says, should be fine, i think.) then to the dentist where we find sasha has two cavities! wha-! great, this means a mini lecture from another health volunteer, where i nod and uh-uh, whatever. i am not happy, though, because we took the kids to the dentist last september and even though we asked about the strange brownish spots on her teeth (one between her front two teeth, where the cavities are, and another on a canine, which is probably mostly scaling) we were told she was fine, everything fine...ugh. guess i won't be going back to that dentist. *sigh* poor sasha.

then, lastly a final sit-down with a health volunteer who could speak some english. some idiot had marked sasha's weight as 18.6 kilos, so was lectured a bit about that. i just looked on in a bit of shock, WTF ever, i do not want to be there any longer. this young lady insisted in english that they just want to help, please let them help, we want to help you. wut? yes yes, nod the head, can i have the boshi-techo back and avoid the food booth at the front door (with recipe hand-outs i DO NOT WANT). had to phone the school and say we wouldn't be home so please keep hiro on the bus and i will pick him up there. screaming match between sasha and tommy until they finally fall asleep, get to the school before hiro. *deep breath* make sense, illahee. finally get hiro and drive home and immediately weigh sasha who is merely 14 kilos. am pissed.

i check her boshi-techo and yes, they got her weight wrong. also, put her age down as three years, one month. uh, don't know math much? i know this is a little thing but we certainly don't want to start on weigh issues now, esp. since i think she's of average weight and hiro is under weight. but what truly pisses me off is they kept after yoshi for months about going to this stupid thing AND THEY CAN'T EVEN FUCKING DO IT RIGHT!!! ahem. yes, quite cheesed off for a colossal waste of time.

i'm also a bit cheesed about the, 'we want to help you.' part. i don't need help now that she's three. i needed help when she was a newborn (or any of my children, for that matter.) i was alone and had no help when they were babies. now that they can walk and talk i don't need so much help. more free time, maybe, but not help. it may seem weird to get pissed of about someone wanting to help you, but it felt like, too little, too late. phew.

today is tommy's birthday. two! he's getting so big! and the talking, he's so cute!

today kuri and pinglet came over to visit us. we usually meet once a week or so, and decided that since it was tommy's birthday, they would come here and have lunch with us! i made a lasanga, and hummus, and also served salsa and chips (talk about mixing cuisine...). and of course, we had cupcakes (yum!) a few years ago i got a trunk of princess play clothes for sasha, and now she's finally old enough to play with it. since the pinglet was coming over, i thought it was a good chance to break it out and dress up. i also got out some halloween costumes, so tommy could have a chance to join in for dressing up (he got to wear stitch, and was VERY cute!) pinglet ended up wearing a snow white costume that my mom sent last week, she was absolutely adorable in it!

after lunch and cupcakes, tommy and sasha were getting cranky, so we said goodbye to our friends and they drove back to kita-q. too bad it takes so long to get to each others' houses! sasha went to sleep right away, but tommy was too stubborn. i had to pick hiro up at school today so tommy slept then. when we got home, hiro jumped on his new bike (early birthday present) and after one and a half trips up the street, he crashed and burned! he bruised his face and scratched his knee, so it was time to finish. poor hiro.

we have had dinner, and the birthday cake, and shower, and the nice clean house i had this morning is gone. *sigh* oh well, tomorrow's another day.

happy birthday tommy, we love you!!