Seth is 4 years old!

I can’t believe he’s four already!  I hope he had a good day – it had it’s ups and downs as we are still all grumpy from jet lag and all the disruptions to our schedules for the last month … or two … or three.  We are planning a little birthday party – kind of thrown together since we’ve been out of town – on Saturday.  Still unsure of the theme, but I don’t really do themes anyways, so it’ll be a Super Friends / army / something party.  Sure …  Today, we just made a cake with the Green Lantern symbol on it.  It looked pretty crappy, but the boys liked it.  We also opened presents from us – a new Trio Joker set and some Batman books and another Superhero book.  He is hoping to get more presents from friends, but we’ll see.

I feel like I have blogged a lot about our past month, so what to add?  I think Seth liked Japan, but I can tell it is really really hard for him to travel.  He really likes to know what’s going on and to be in control of things and to have his own quiet time, pretty much none of which got respected on our trip.  A perfect example would be, before the flights, Seth would sit in his seat, look through the emergency information brochure thoroughly and then, often, go to sleep.  He has this little maturity about him sometimes.  He wanted to spend a lot of the trip either playing the arcades and buying Ultraman figures at Aeon and throwing massive fits when we were done (I think this kid has the greatest potential to get addicted to video games … although who knows if that could ever happen because Andrew always takes over what Seth is doing) and also looking through his coloring/activity and sticker books and talking about super heros.  He also really enjoyed watching Doraemon movies at the Funai’s home and watching cartoons in Japanese at home.  He really latched on to learning new Japanese words as well and is still saying “Arigato” for thank you at home sometimes.  But … oh, the meltdowns and the tears.  And now he has been waking up crying with nightmares several times a night since we got home.  Poor kid.  He is just not a traveler.

Seth is just a sweet kid.  He puts up with a lot from Andrew – Andrew is his best pal, but he also can be mean and rude and very spur of the moment.  I can also see a sweet side of Seth coming out now and then with Logan and it is fun to see them start to play together more.  Seth comes over and cuddles with me and tells me how much he loves me every morning when he wakes up.  He never wants to go on a mission or have kids because he wants to live with me forever.  It’s cute – I know that won’t last.

Seth is really starting to learn to read and it is fun to watch.  He is up to about lesson 42 in the teach your child to read in 100 lessons.  He sounds out really well, but isn’t quite at the point where he can read a word without sounding it out slowly out loud.  He loves to practice.  He is good at writing, too, but is very much a perfectionist and gets very frustrated if things aren’t just so.  He was making a beautiful card for our neighbor and then refused to give it to her because he spelled something wrong or something like that.  Poor kid.  He also has very good number sense and loves to try to do addition and talk about numbers.  Infinity is his favorite number.

Seth got new shoes while we were in Japan – blue ones – and is very attached.  He believes that he can run very fast now that he has them.  He also believes that if he eats food from a certain color he will get super powers.  For example, if he eats green food, he will be like Green Lantern, brown/yellow/red like the Flash, etc.  It actually has encouraged him to branch out a little in his eating … his favorite dinner is probably spaghetti with cheese – maybe a little sauce, and meatballs and some edamame and garlic bread (what we had for dinner, minus the meatballs).

We love Seth so much.  The last 4 years have flown by, buddy.  Here’s to many more great ones.

Fun Things This Month:

• Carnival at Andrew’s school.  Seth was a bit nervous in the beginning but after going on some rides with our friends, the Shumways’ sons, he was ready to go and loved riding everything he was tall enough for.  It was such fun to see him laughing his head of.  He tried the cake walk, but got bored a lot faster than Andrew and went and did more rides by himself.  It was a fun, exhausting evening.
• Trip to Japan – already explained in many posts.  Seth’s favorites
• New ultraman figurines
• Arcade games at Aeon
• Playing with blocks and ultraman monsters at Funais
• Watching Doraemon
• Watching Mickey Mouse clubhouse in japanese
• Watching the conveyor belt sushi and checking for the special prizes
• Train museum – though he was very sick, poor kid
• Seeing the monkeys and finding things in the book at Nikko
• Picking out candy at Kawagoe
• Toy Story ride at Disney Sea – he asked us like every 10 minutes when we could go back and do our fast pass
• Little roller coasters at Disney Sea
• New shoes
• Little birthday party at home

Last day in Japan: Disneyland

We are home in the US now … yay!  Our trip back was mostly uneventful, but very long.  We left Tokyo on Tuesday at 4 pm and arrived 9.5 hours later at 9:30 am (traveling back in time …) in LA.  Seth and Logan slept a lot of the flight (and only screamed some) and Logan even got the only extra seat in the plane.  But Andrew fell asleep like the last ten minutes, so getting him through passport control/customs/security and onto our next flight was a NIGHTMARE.  No, we can not carry 3 boys without any strollers through all of that.  Anyways, we are hope and now in jet lag Act 2.  Everyone else is napping.  I guess I should be, too.  Oh, well.

Back to Disneyland on Monday.  We thought Monday would be less crowded.  HA!  We have since looked and Katsu saw it was a Chiba prefecture holiday (the “state” that Disneyland is in), so that explains the hordes of children who we thought should have been in school.  I thought we were running quite late until I realized that the kids had changed the clock on me!  So, we made it to Disneyland before it opened again and stood in line whiel I slathered the kids in sunscreen and all the Japanese looked at me completely baffled.

The park was PACKED.  Seriously, I was grumpy and claustrophobic most of the day.  And it still doesn’t hold a candle to when we went when Andrew was a baby during the New Years holiday and rode a grand total of 2 rides.  So, we didn’t want to make the same mistake of waiting forever in line for a FastPass, so we skipped Star Tours.  Hopefully, someday Andrew will forgive us, but until then he reminds us continuously about how he didn’t get to do anything he wanted in Japan and that was the only thing he wanted to do. 

Instead, Katsu got us fast passes for the Pooh ride, since that usually has at least an hour wait and I took the kids on Dumbo.  Andrew decided he didn’t want to go and Katsu showed up before we had to get on and took him on Snow White instead (probably too scary for the little boys anyways).  The boys loved Dumbo and we took some pictures afterwards. 

Then, we did the teacups and It’s a Small World.  Actually, I could be totally getting the order confused, but we did something like that.  I enjoyed the tea cups as I was with Logan and he did almost no spinning of the tea cup.  Andrew and Seth, on the other hand, spinned Katsu dizzy dizzy dizzy.  Poor guy.  Logan LOVED It’s a small world – really the first ride he enjoyed much and the other boys really liked it, too.  Though waiting in line for 30 minutes to see it was a bit much for the boys because it was very sunny and very humid (though not too hot, actually). 

Somewhere in here we went to Adventureland and went on Pirates.  Logan got pretty scared and Andrew was obsessed with counting all the pirates, but it was nice and cool and not crowded.  By the time, we got, the line on Jungle Cruise just kept multiplying, so we decided to skip it.  We did the Swiss Family Treehouse, but then had a bathroom emergency, so we had to run there. 

Sometime, Logan fell asleep and so Katsu and the boys went through Haunted Mansion with fast passes (a very popular ride in Japan which still baffles me), while I sat with him.  Then, the boys and I went and explored some of the houses in Toon Town for a bit.  Logan woke up just then and so we all went with our fast passes to do Winnie the Pooh’s ride.  This ride is probably one of the very best in Disneyland.  The ride is beautiful – waiting in line, you walk through pages of the book and then you ride in little carts.  They don’t run on a track, and each one goes a little different – it’s very interesting.  You follow the story of Pooh, one part you can actually smell the honey.  I am really enjoying the incorporation of smell on rides, now.  Logan was a bit scared during the Heffalump dream scene, but he seemed to really enjoy this ride, too.  The boys all liked it (though I am usually in the car with Logan so I know how he likes it better).

We also did the Pinocchio ride, somewhere in here.

We went back to Adventureland and did the Tiki room.  We were hoping it would be air conditioned, but no.  And the story, which incorporated Stitch, was just kind of boring.  It was almost parade time, so we thought we could get into a restaurant without a wait – it was 3 pm after all.  No such luck, so we bought some ice cream and headed over to Tom Sawyer Island.  The kids were having fun running around and exploring, but I was getting super hot and worn out since I had been basically holding Logan 24/7 since he wanted nothing to do with Dad.  So, after a while, we took the ferry back and decided to just deal with it and wait for a restaurant.  We ate at the Crystal Palace and were much happier afterwards.

We headed over to Toon Town and the boys took turns riding the roller coaster with us (Logan was too small to go) and then we went to see a new 3D show with Mickey and music.  I actually enjoyed it a lot, but by this time we were just all getting so tired.

Finally, we watched the Electric Lights parade because Katsu said it was always his favorite part when he was a kid.  I was a little skeptical that it was going to worth staying up for, but it was really really beautiful.  I especially liked the newer floats.  My favorite was probably the Genie as he lighted up in all kinds of different colors and patterns.  Really amazing.  Then, we walked to the train station and took a city bus back to the hotel.  A very tiring day.

Pictures from Japan: Disney Sea

Japan: Disney Sea

Our first day was Disney Sea.  It was Sunday, so we thought it would be the more crowded day, so we should start with the least crowded park.  It was rainy rainy, so we bought a couple umbrellas from the hotel and walked to Disney Sea.  It's about a 10 minute walk from the hotel - you can see the park clearly from our hotel - especially the volcano.  The lines were long waiting to get in the park - bag check plus tickets and the boys were already impatient.  Once we got in, we rushed over to get Fast Passes for the Toy Story ride, a new ride that everyone wants to get on.  The line for Fast Passes was at least 30-45 minutes long!  It was crazy.  We got into the park right when it opened, went straight there, and still our tickets were for 7:15 pm. When we saw how long the line was, the boys and I decided to wait in the store where we wouldn't get wet.  But that got old quick, so we finally found Katsu (yay for getting a green umbrella, definitely a minority) and headed over to the Mermaid area.  I was a little nervous about reuniting later, but it seemed like the best option.  No one gave us a map and I was not sure where to get one, so we definitely took the long way to get there (there is almost no signage in Disney Sea, but it's such a beautiful park, I can't quite complain because maybe the lack of signage helps to make it so pretty).  The boys were running at one point and Seth fell flat on his back and was very upset.  Suffice it to say that no one was very happy at this point, we were all wet, we had been in the park for an hour and done nothing and it looked like this wouldn't be the best day.

But in truth, we ended up having a ton of fun.

The boys and I went on a tea cup ride, which made Logan a little nervous.  We got on the blowfish ride (kind of like Dumbo) and saw Katsu.  Yay!  We went on all the rides here and the waits weren't too long.  The tea cups were fun as was the blowfish.  The jellyfish ride just went up and down as was kind of boring.  The Under the Sea show was fun - live with the songs in English and the dialogue in japanese.  Logan was terrified, so Katsu had to take him out.  Seth was a bit scared at one point, but it was really good.  Seth and Katsu went on the two roller coasters (kiddie) together while Logan and Andrew and I explored the play land which was very nice, though by the time the two of them got back I thought I would lose my mind to Mermaid music.  The nice thing about this area was that it was mostly just kids and parents, unlike the "kid" rides in Disneyland, for example.

Next, we went to the Aladdin area.  We got there just in time to see a little character show (a lot of the shows were cancelled because of the rain), but by this time most of the rain was done.  Then, we did the Carousel (two stories - pretty cool), got a fast pass for the Aladdin show and went on Sinbad (kind of like Pirates, but with an adorable song that I loved that went along with the ride) and a magic carpet ride (kind of like Dumbo).  We went to the Aladdin show - it was a 3D magic show.  Logan did pretty well and wasn't too scared, but of course, he won't wear the glasses.

Then, we wandered a lot.  We got a Fast Pass for 20,000 Leagues under the sea.  We were going to do a boat ride, but it wasn't on because the water show was going to start soon.  So, we got some pastries and I fed Logan and he fell asleep and we watched the water show.  It was really nice and while the story seemed pretty pointless (Katsu who understood said it was pointless), it was beautiful and the kids loved seeing it and all the characters.  Then, we went to get on the ship and of course, Logan woke up as soon as we got there but we enjoyed a nice boat ride.  Then, we walked back to the 20000 Leauges under the sea.  On the way, a random character greeted Logan and he FREAKED out.  He burst into tears and it cracked up everyone around.  I didn't love 20000 Leauges under the sea, but the boys liked it.  Logan got kind of scared - he gets scared on rides and is fine if he sits in my lap.  At first, I tried to make him sit next to me, but on boat type rides, I finally decided, it doesn't really matter.  He can sit on my lap.

We headed over to the American area to go get food to eat.  We waited till about 4 to eat so we wouldn't have to wait in line.  We ate a buffet and it was nice to feel full!  At one point, though, we looked over and Andrew and Seth were pulling out their privates in the aisle.  WHY???  Thankfully, I don't think anyone but us noticed, but we decided at that point it was time to go.

We came out and there was this truly bizarre food show.  The characters were singing and dancing, mostly to a lot of American songs dressed up as different kinds of food.  For example, they were singing "I'm hot, you're hot" to Indian or Mexican food.  Then, they were dancing to American patriotic music dressed up as parts of hamburgers and doing flips to make a hamburger and using fries as batons.  I wasn't sure whether to be offended or find it totally hilarious.  The boys liked it, however.

Then, we went on the train and saw Aquatopia.  Logan LOVED the train and everyone loved Aquatopic, which is water boats which spin around the sea.  You can see Tokyo Bay and the ocean right from this part of the park.  It is nice.  Then, we tried some of the flavored popcorn.  Here they had strawberry popcorn and it was delicious.  We walked over to the castle part of the park and climbed around the discovery ship.  The boys loved "shooting" the cannons which make smoke and a lot of noise.  Then, it was time to go to Toy Story Mania.  It was a really beautiful ride with really pretty scenery.  The ride was a 3D shooting game.  You wore 3D glasses and then used a pop type gun to play arcade games.  It was fun, but I don't think it's worth standing in line for 2-3 hours, which is the typical wait time.  Andrew played pretty well and got about 50,000 pts ( to Katsu's 125,000) but seth got in the double digits.  Good thing he didn't catch on.

We were there so late, we decided to stay for the Fantasmic.  As soon as it started, Logan freaked out, so I ended up walking home.  I got pretty lost because we exited into a different ticket area then we arrived in, but I didn't realize there was two separate areas.  I finally found a map and made my way home, ready to wield the umbrella in case anyone strange came my way.  The boys loved the show and even saw the Disneyland fireworks while they were walking home.  It was a great day.

Pictures from Japan: Park and Rainforest Cafe