Frustration

So, this week ... or month ... or last two months has really been an exercise in frustration. December and January have been full of illnesses. Croup and the flu for the boys in December. And then we all caught colds in Japan. Mine morphed into a sinus infection which I still have. Andrew threw up earlier this week EVERYWHERE for some reason. Then, Katsu had the stomach flu yesterday. And today, the boys have runny noses, Katsu still feels run down, and by dinner, Andrew had a fever, was complaining of a sore throat, and is threatening to throw up more. Sigh ... Sometimes I wonder if we will remember this winter as the "sick" one. And, oh, by the way, also the one where Katsu got his PhD, we visited Japan, and we moved.

With all the sicknesses plus jet lag ( I think Seth is finally over it as of today ), packing has not been very fun. But we have almost everything all boxed up and have started cleaning some (why our apartment does not have self-cleaning ovens, I do not know). Katsu gets the truck tomorrow. I am SO ready to move and just be done with it. The last two months have been a yucky process of packing, eating out of the pantry, and then eating up everything before going on a trip, eating weird food ona trip, and then having two weeks of trying to eat "whatever" since we are packing and don't want to buy lots of food. I can't wait to have menu plans and cook and eat normally.

If that isn't enough, I feel like we have a lot else on our minds. Like me getting my paper ready to submit for the conference again and get some research done so I can finally graduate and be done with this PhD and research. And researching a new car, since we'll need to get one ASAP after moving, since there is no way on earth our car will pass inspection. Which means, we'll need to get a bigger car, but in deciding bigger, you have to predict the future - like, how many kids we'll have. As if I know. And other things, like trying to plan a trip to the Netherlands in what I know realize is sort of high season in April because of the tulips. That, or wean Seth.

Busy and sick. That's us.

Seth is 7 months old!

This month was a totally crazy one with all our travel and jet lag. Seth is still the worst-affected by jet lag and is on a weird schedule - shunning naps, going to bed at a normal time, and then wanting to be awake at 3 am - 5 am every day. Arggh. Hopefully, within a week, it should be all gone (fingers crossed).

We also finally had Seth's 6 month appt and got his weight/height. I don't think I even posted it for 4 months either. So at 4 mo, Seth was 15 lb (52%) and 24.3 in (26%). Now, at 6 mo (really, almost 7), Seth was 16.6 lb (20%) and 27.2 in (59%). So his weight and height switched percentiles. I don't know where the magic babies are who track the same percentile the first year, because my kids can't keep it straight for even 2 months! I am a little concerned about the big % drop in weight, but it is probably due to Seth being a very distracted/uninterested nurser lately and also having the flu, croup, a horrible cold, and international travel in the last month and a half. That is a lot to throw on a little guy.

Okay, back to Seth. Sleep - totally crazy of course. Food - Seth is loving solids. Jarred food, he likes orange veggies and all fruits. Not a huge fan of cereal, but will eat it. He goes through a couple jars in a couple days at the moment. He really likes "real" food - he was totally loving baked potatoes yesterday and is a huge fan of bread. Katsu even gave him sacrament bread today, though I thought that was too early.

Seth is still a huge looker. Loves to look at everything and LOVED being in Japan. He hates being cooped up in the car, but otherwise, gets really excited when we got outside because he gets to look at things. He is also a HUGE flirt. He will keep trying to make eye contact with whoever he sees, and, when they notice him, give them the biggest smile. It's darling.

Seth loves to have fun. He really loves to play and will sit pretty contentedly for a while playing with toys on the floor. He really loves Andrew's toys. Andrew shares pretty well, but will often take away what Seth is playing with and give Seth another toy. Seth usually tolerates this, but sometimes he definitely wants to play with the toy he had. Seth thinks Andrew is so much fun and loves to laugh and play with him. He also loves to try to play with the cat. Joe is not similarly enthralled.

Seth loves to laugh and giggle. He loves when you tickle him. He laughs whenever he hears other people laughing. He smiles often in his sleep. He loves to hear music and singing and both he and Andrew will sit in front of the CD player for a long time listening to music. Seth really loves reading the book Snuggle Puppy and gets very excited as soon as he sees it. He loves being thrown in the air and dancing.

Seth doesn't babble very much, but I swear he can say the word "Hi". He doesn't say it often, but sometimes when you come into the room or when he wakes up or sometimes when you say it to him first, he will say "Hi". He only says it once and the only time he says it is when it is appropriate. Weird.

Seth is cute and fun and a joy to have around.

Family Pictures

So, I forgot to mention that after we got back from Hiroshima, on one of those "sick" days, we went and got a family portrait taken. I was less than thrilled, especially when I saw the cat was coming. I mean, two sick & tired kids and one cat does not sound like a good way to take a picture. But they turned out pretty good. Seth doesn't look fabulous in any of the pictures and they had me tilt my head funny so I look like I have a double chin (I swear, I don't!), but all together, not bad. Enjoy our little Japanese boys.

In other news, jet lag really stinks, but the boys didn't wake up until 6 and 7 am this morning (if you ignore all the night wakings), so this is a HUGE IMPROVEMENT. And I still have a cold making this the longest, most miserable cold. Yuck. In happier news, I got accepted to a conference in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in April. I am excited, but we are trying to decide whether just I will go (and wean Seth?) or the whole family (let's just say - very pricey). And we are packing away. Packing the truck a week from today.

Andrew turned 32 months a while ago ...

We don't want to miss an Andrew update, so here we go.

Andrew has turned really whiny lately and likes to use non-words or made-up words. I think this is from a few different reasons - he has been sick a lot and we are in Japan and everyone was speaking Japanese. Although I have read a lot to Andrew in Japanese, he doesn't seemed to have retained too much, which is frustrating for me because it takes me a lot of effort to read in Japanese. But at least I have an impression zoo animal vocab in Japanese ... ha ha ha.

Oh, one funny story. Katsu's sister Izumi has been working hard to teach Andrew some Japanese while we were there. The word for "tasty" is oishii. Andrew for the first several days said "Oh, shit". So funny!!! He would say it anytime something tasted good.

Andrew is very very excited about moving to St. Louis. He always wants to help pack something and loves to play with and on the boxes (much to our chagrin). When we were flying to Japan, he kept asking if we were going to St. Louis (he pronounces it more like St. Wouis). We were trying to avoid the question. He was pretty upset when we got to Japan and it wasn't St. Louis - he wanted to get on another plane right then and go to St. Louis - now that is dedication! When he was playing at the train museum, he kept saying that all the trains go to St. Louis.

Andrew is still totally in love with Seth. He likes to share his toys with Seth, even some of his beloved cars. Yesterday, the boys were playing and Seth fell down. Andrew went right next to him and was comforting him "It's okay, you're okay, buddy." He still calls him sweet names like "sweetheart". Of course, he also called Trevor's daughter that one time which was so cute.

Andrew had kind of a hard time in Japan and several times said he wanted to go home, at least in the beginning. But then he was totally smitten with his aunt Izumi. He wanted to see and play with her all the time. He also was very interested in her cat, which he always called "her pet" for some reason. Then, he had a hard time when we went to Hiroshima and kept saying he wanted to go to Izumi's home and that he missed her. He always falls in love with his aunts.

Andrew was in noodle heaven in Japan and pretty much subsisted on yakisoba, udon, fried rice, and snacks. We really need to work more on nutrition and balanced diets once we are all on the same schedule and having real meals (okay, so that might not be until move ...).

He got his first otoshidama (new years $$ for kids) from his Aunt Takako, but I think we forgot to have him spend it (oops...).

Andrew loves to pick his nose and does it all the time now. It drives me nuts, but nothing I do seems to make it better. I'm sure we probably have pictures of him picking his nose all over Japan.

Japan - the rest of the trip

The long saga is finally over (if only our jet lag was over ...)

Sunday in Etajima we just spent chilling with Trevor's family and left Andrew with them while Katsu and I had a nice lunch of okinomiyaki, Hiroshima style, in the city a ferry ride away from Etajima ... Kire, I think it was called. I think I like Katsu's homemade version almost as well which we ate quite often this summer (what else can you do with so much cabbage). Andrew was so happy to have so many toys to play with, I think. Oh, I almost forgot, after we got back from lunch, Trevor took us on a walking tour around the campus where he works. Here are some of the pretty pictures:





Monday, we took the ferry to the train to the bullet train to the bullet train to the train home. In between the two bullet train rides, we took a two hour break to go see one of the most amazing castles in Japan at Himeji. It was beautiful. I'm glad we went and it was probably best that we didn't go with Trevor's family as we had to carry the kids all the way up on small wooden stairs/ladders cowering down to avoid the low ceilings in slippers while carrying our shoes (This is common in Japanese temples, but I have never seen this in a castle before! As a westerner, I have a hard time going up stairs while keeping slippers on.) But, it was worth it. We had to rush at the end to catch our bullet train and I was so worn out. Now, I know it was because I was getting sick. And almost as soon as we got home, Seth threw up. And the sickness started ...










So, we just spent the next two days mostly hanging out at home instead of using our rail passes more. We did spend one afternoon picking out a futon and all the accessories (sheets, etc) at a local store for Katsu's family to ship to us in St. Louis. A japanese futon is NOTHING like what we call a futon in the US. When we get ours, I will explain better with pictures.

And on Thursday morning, we left the house at 5:45 am to start the journey home ....
And some last minute pictures early before leaving (our new camera seems to take amazing pictures outside, but inside ... not so much)

Japan - Trip with Trevor: Hiroshima

If you can't tell, I have a lot of free time on my hands. All the boys have been sleeping more or less continuously since 11ish am. So much for adjusting to jet lag. The problem is that when I tried to wake Andrew up yesterday from a too-long nap, he ended up throwing up almost continuously for half an hour before we finally got him calmed down and back to sleep. So the new rule is - healthy first, then jet lag second. But I've been awake all day ...

So, on Saturday, after Miyajima, we took the ferry back to Hiroshima and took the streetcar (the trolley) to downtown. Andrew fell asleep on the ferry and actually slept through this entire trip to Hiroshima. By the time we got to the museum, all 3 kids were asleep which made viewing the museum nicer.

There is not a whole lot to see in Hiroshima besides the museums and memorials related to the atomic bombing in WWII. So, that is all we saw. We did it relatively fast (in 2 hours, I think), but that was enough time. I had read several books (including some very strange kid books) about the atomic bombing, so most of the information in the museum was, disappointingly, not new for me (I was hoping to see stuff I didn't know). It was still shocking to see and imagine what the city must have looked like. The whole thing is just so very sad to me. Trevor actually works with/on nuclear submarines, so it is definitely a strange juxtaposition touring the sites with him.

The Atomic Bomb Dome - the building left standing right near the bomb's blast - and memorials:

Japan - Trip with Trevor: Miyajima

Trevor is our good friend from college - our "group" from our singles ward was Trevor, Katsu, and a whole bunch of girls. Pretty much everyone went to Boston University except for me. Anyways, we haven't seen him in a good 5 years, and so since his family was living in Japan, we decided to go visit. Granted, he lives near Hiroshima, which is a 5 hour bullet train from Tokyo (which is a 1 hr train ride from Katsu's parents), so it isn't a cheap or fast trip, but we decided to do it regardless. A trip is always more fun when you spend it with friends.

We spent most of Friday getting to their place. A taxi ride, two bullet trains, a train ride, another taxi ride, a trip to the American base to get some American food, and then a long car ride, we finally arrived at their home. The first bullet train ride was relaxing for the women who had the babies, but probably torture for the men who had two rambunctious two year olds. Ha ha ha. So nice to have English conversation. By the end of the day, we were all tired. And I felt so car sick! This part of Japan is gorgeous (well, compared to Tokyo, anything is), with the water, the islands, the mountains. Very pretty. And that makes for sickening car rides to get around the islands. They live on the island of Etajima at the naval school there where Trevor is teaching English and American Navy stuff.




We stayed in their Japanese style Tatami room, which was interesting. I would love to have a tatami room, but I was afraid it would be a challenge with the kids, because the doors are made of paper, so the kids can hear everything! Surprisingly, the boys slept not too bad and I expected much worse from Seth since he was coming down with a cold and had some croup cough.

On Saturday, we went off for a day trip with Trevor and his daughter Addie. Because, they live on an island, we took a ferry to Hiroshima and then took a ferry to Miyajima, our first stop of the day. The kids loved the ferries.






Miyajima is supposed to be one of the three most beautiful spots in Japan. The entire island is sacred, and no one is allowed to give birth or die on the island (I wonder how exactly they enforce that ...). The red tori of the shrine/temple is located in the ocean and is supposed to be especially beautiful. The island, like Nara (which we visited our first trip to Japan), has deer running (more like sitting) wild all over the island, which like to try to eat your food. The kids, of course, loved them. We toured the temple/shrine, enjoyed the sights, checked out the little shops, and ate lunch before taking the ferry back. Katsu got a favorite(?) snack - squid on a stick and we got some other traditional snacks too (maple leaf shaped things). Anyways, so many pictures to choose from, I only posted a few and it is still WAY too many. Enjoy the Japanese eye-candy.