Friday Night Leftovers

• We've got a "failed" skylight that needs to be repaired. I'm glad we found this leak now. We're expecting a pretty wet, snowy and generally nasty winter here in the Pacific NW.
• It's Mom's Night Out tonight. I'm heading out with some neighborhood moms for drinks and dessert this evening. It's my one night out/month since the baby was born in June. I love it. I'm happy to have found a group of women, all very different, but all fun and interesting to spend some time with.
• I can't believe Thanksgiving is in less than one week!
• I'm trying to find a pair of slippers to buy. I need some support for my feet. I wear supports in my sneakers for pronation. I'm thinking that all the walking around (on hardwood floors, in bare feet) while trying to get the baby to sleep is causing the discomfort. Hopefully some slippers with arch support will help.
  
• I cooked up a pie pumpkin this morning. I'm going to puree the pumpkin and hopefully turn it into some pumpkin goodies. This was my first ever pumpkin from scratch attempt. It was surprisingly easy and smelled good while roasting in the oven!
  

Do You Hear That?

It's the sound of peace and quiet in my home. Peanut is napping (Gboy fell asleep with her while trying to get her to stay in once place long enough to nap - a rarity these days). Sweet Pea is snoozing. I'm alone. For at least a few moments.

I find there are precious few moments to myself these days. Sleep is an ongoing battle (more with Peanut than Sweet Pea, but between the two of them, I'm lucky to get 2 hours of sleep in a row for the last 3+ weeks).

Needless to say, this may be why I find myself incredibly short-tempered lately. Still, we do have good times and laughs. The other day, we went to the store and when I put Peanut in the grocery cart and started pushing it across the pavement in the parking lot, she giggled and said, "That tickles my bum!" Or there was the other night when she started telling jokes and cracked herself up until she couldn't speak because she was laughing so hard - at her own jokes! Sweet Pea laughs at everything, but especially her old sister, which means that the more one laughs, the more the other laughs. They're a comedy team already.

Gboy and I may lose our minds in the next year. We've started thinking about the possibility of buying a new home. We'd like to exchange our current configuration for one more suited to our family's needs. But that's not proving to be easy as we're looking for something fairly specific and of course, it doesn't appear to exist as is. The possibility of a renovation is in our future and while exciting, we need to find the right fixer-upper to start. Yay! And urgh.

And Now for the "Leftovers"....

And all I've got right now is a series of random thoughts, and it's Friday and suddenly the idea of the Friday Night Leftovers popped into my head. I've seen them before and never participated but today feels like a perfect fit. For more Friday Night Leftovers stop by Sippy Cups Are Not for Starbucks.

Without further ado:

• Fall is here and I'm excited for all the back to school type fun which doesn't even really affect me since neither of the girls is school-aged and I'm not a teacher. Whatever. I love back to school supplies and the changing colors of the leaves. Can you blame me?
• Between the two girls I'm getting only a couple of hours of sleep at a time. Peanut is going through....I don't know what for the last few days and is awake at least once a night, usually twice and then is often awake at 5am for good. We're working on trying to convince her that playing in her room quietly until 6am is the best and safest option for everyone. Sweet Pea is still a champ at night sleeping for 5-6 hours in the first part of the night and then waking 3-4 hours later. But between the two of them, it's every couple of hours. Oh boy. I'm starting to feel really fuzzy around the edges and I'm just incredibly grateful that we've gone as long as we have (Sweet Pea just turned 3 months old!) before I started to fray at the edges! And I'm increasingly grateful for daycare 2 days a week. Every little bit of assistance helps right now.
• I've started watching "Lost". I may be the last person on the planet to see it. I'm still at episode 7 of season 1 but quite enjoying it thus far.
• I've also been reading a fair amount lately. (At least the girls both nap!) I'm proud of me for finding some "me" time and activity. This means, however, that the house pretty much looks like a disaster most of the time. You can't win 'em all.
• Today is my 5th wedding anniversary. And that means that Gboy and I have been together for over 10 years now. That feels momentous!

Enter the Daycare

I've never even seen Enter the Dragon, but felt that a martial arts reference was somehow appropriate here.

Yes, Peanut is in daycare now. We started her last week. The plan is to have her in daycare 2 days a week in order for Gboy and I to attend to some work-related issues (his home business needs some help and at the moment the help is me). Also, I'm hoping to get some quality time with Sweet Pea (and I sincerely hope that we get to do some cat napping together on occasion). Furthermore, I think Peanut could really use the outlet. The daycare we've selected is attended by two of her toddler friends (comforting) and several other new playmates (exciting). They've also got tricycles (!) and dollhouses (!) and a chinchilla (!) and a kitten (!). They go on little excursions to the library and local playgrounds. And starting in one more week, she'll be having preschool in the mornings for a few hours. The preschool teacher is a certified 1st grade teacher with two kiddos of her own, both under the age of 5. It's a wonderful play-based environment that I think suits Peanut's personality beautifully.

Having said all of this, the first day went perfectly. By the second there were signs of some separation anxiety. It's increased little by little each day (we're at day 3 today) and although she loves the idea of playing at the daycare, she doesn't want to nap there. She hasn't outright refused to go yet, and willingly got dressed and walked over with me this morning. And all was going along really well until just before I walked out the door. That's when she lost it and the waterworks started. There was crying, howling, and climbing all over me (and little Sweet Pea who was strapped to me in the Bjorn). I know that kids do this. I know that separating takes time. And I also know that she's a pretty independent kid already (we did a play date test run that went without a hitch - she didn't seem to care if I was around at all that day). I suspect this is just something that we have to muddle through as many parents have done before me, but it feels hard. Really hard.

A part of me feels like I should be able to manage both kids and a home business all at the same time without needing outside help. But Peanut isn't that kind of kid. She's a high-energy kid who likes a *lot* of social interaction. I can only read so many books to her, or play ice cream shop with her for so many hours in the day before Sweet Pea just *has* to have her needs met and the business needs my attention. Eventually, my best efforts to multi-task ("Let's read a book while Mama feeds Sweet Pea") cease to be entertaining enough for Peanut - my little dynamo.

For now, we're riding it out to see where this takes us.

Identity and Change

Yesterday Gboy and I had yet another conversation about where and how to live in order to support the girls with becoming bilingual and bicultural. It seems we've discussed this over and over and over again. The sticking points include:

1) How to find a way to make a real home of OUR own while we live in Japan. Staying with my mother-in-law and father-in-law isn't all that bad. The cost of living is much more affordable that way and the girls benefit from having extended family members around (lots of them live very close by). And I'm fortunate to get along pretty well with my MIL and FIL. As much as Gboy and I have worked to carve out some space of our own in the large house, there's still work that needs to be done if I'm ever going to feel like I can call it my own.

2) How do I find a way to pursue a career path or even do some volunteer work that is fulfilling? Two and a half years ago when we found out that I was pregnant with our first child, I was just finishing my degree in library and information science. I was thrilled to have found a career that I expected to enjoy and had made a career change - quitting my job, and going back to school for another advanced degree - in order to do it. I love my children, but I also know that parenting alone isn't enough to fill me up. I may be able to say good-bye to my career as a young adult librarian. I mean, how can one work in a library for 6 months out of the year? How could I work in young adult services in Japan when I don't speak the language that well and I'm not sure the concept of YA librarian even exists in Japan. I'd be sad to give it up before I even got a chance to really be employed as a YA librarian, but if that goes, I really feel as though I'd need something else to take its place. I don't have that much time right now and I don't expect to or necessarily need to be working at the moment. But I'm looking at options for what to do in a couple of years when Peanut is ready for kindergarten and Sweet Pea is ready for preschool.

3) How do we manage to keep our home in the U.S. so that we have a place to return to? The idea of renting it out for 6 months at a time every year, to new renters, starts to feel like a logistical nightmare. Did I mention that the hardwood floors were damaged by our last renters? Their dog who according to them, never does this, urinated on the carpet. The didn't see it until it had soaked into the carpet and damaged both the carpet and floors. The dog also chewed up and destroyed a remote control. In the future, no pets! We'll learn these lessons the hard way I'm sure, but I'm not sure I really want to.

4) How do we educate the girls? Everyone asks us this question. If we're existing in two places (for now let's say 6 months in each location), how can the girls go to school? Do we pull them out of school mid-year? The fact that the school year calendars are different doesn't seem to help. In Japan the school year starts in April and there's no extended summer vacation like we're used to here in the U.S. This makes things tricky.

In the end, we've decide we're going to keep on trying to make our own path and carve out a lifestyle that works for all four of us and for now that means going back and forth between Japan and the U.S. After our long conversation yesterday, I visited a favorite website of mine, Multilingual Living and read this article on Identity and Change, which is really about how multicultural families can work together to make these huge and potentially life altering changes.

For me, it's obvious that there are significant changes to my identity if we continue to pursue this particular bicultural lifestyle. Item numbers one and two on this list deal directly with creating my own, comfortable personal space and my own personal identity with relation to work or other activities that I find fulfilling outside of my identity as a mother. While Gboy and I had some very productive conversation on our own yesterday and came to a conclusion that I think we're both happy with, I'm hoping that this article will give us some guidelines for decision-making that may help us in the future.

Cuteness Keeps Us Going

Here I am in the post-baby bliss phase. Sweet pea continues to sleep for monstrous chunks of time. As much as I adore holding her, she accommodates me by frequently offering to sleep peacefully on her own in a bouncy chair or her co-sleeper. She amazes me. Peanut could rarely be persuaded to be out of arms for more than a few moments. Additionally, Sweet Pea quiets the moment someone picks her up so there is rarely any fussing or crying for very long. It's a wonderful time around here which is good for adjusting to life with a newborn and toddler because the toddler still demands a great deal of time and attention any way you cut it.

In fact we had a day last week that was so rough I nearly ran screaming from the house. I just couldn't seem to communicate with Peanut (she's about to turn 2 1/2) who was fitful about everything. She was throwing things, kicking and hitting me - all very out of character for her - for no reason that I could see. By lunchtime I was exhausted and then she didn't take a very long nap which meant that I didn't get a whole lot of downtime. That night I had plans with some friends to go out and I was immensely grateful that the plans were in motion and Gboy planned to stay at home and put the girls to bed without me. I needed that night out (my first since Sweet Pea was born 5 weeks ago) in a way that was visceral.

Parenting a toddler continues to be a challenge each and every day, particularly as I now try to do it with one hand tied behind my back (so to speak). Having to stop whatever I'm doing with Peanut to nurse Sweet Pea has disrupted the rhythm of things. I'm hopeful that ultimately what will come out of this is more independence for Peanut. She's incredibly verbal and extremely conversational and very much into pretend play right now. As a result, she wants me to constantly be her playmate; I provide the voices for her dolls and stuffed animals and I'm the customer for her store, patient to her as doctor, etc. On top of all this, we're solidifying the potty training and we've moved her to a big girl bed after she figured out how to climb out of her crib just weeks after Sweet Pea's birth. BIG changes all around.

It Was a Good Underwear Day

Once upon a time, before Gboy and I started thinking seriously about starting a family, our post-dinner conversations went something like this:

"Work was interesting today...."
"That was a really nice bottle of Merlot we had with dinner. I'd drink it again."
"What do you think we should do about the dead grass on our microscopic 'front lawn'? Should we think about landscaping it ourselves? " (Insert laughter here!)

Today, our post-dinner conversation actually began with Gboy saying, "It was a good underwear day." He was referring to the fact that Peanut wore her first pair of Big Sister underpants and kept them dry for the better part of the day (minus the 3 hours that we went out for an excursion and decided that with limited access to toilets a diaper was warranted instead). Life feels different when this is how daily conversation goes. Not bad, and not necessarily "good" (discussing the toilet habits of other people, even my own children, isn't high on my list of exciting things to do) but it feels very real and often very rewarding.

But if, 5 years ago, you'd asked me how to interpret that sentence, I wouldn't have had a clue about the context in which I might use it!!