We’ve got a typhoon headed for us. As of yesterday it was looking like it would just be a tropical storm, blow over us in the wee hours of Tuesday and be uneventful. I was pretty excited when PC told me that the Commanding General just decided to give everyone the day off. (In all fairness, its been awhile since we’ve had a good storm and people are acting as if the end of the world is coming. Seriously. In 5 years I’ve never seen the commissary as insane as it was on Sunday.) As of this morning its been upgraded to a category 3 (5 being the worst). Sweet. Right now, its sunny and clear, Im contemplating a quick run in the calm before the storm, and the worst of it is supposed to hit around dinner.

Filed under: JAPAN

I like old things. I like vintage and and antiques and repurposed. I love old photos, and handwritten letters and grandmas dishes and well, anything that makes me think of my grandparents. But lets not confuse antiques with junk. Just because its old doesn’t mean I necessarily like it. Like a 100 year old quilt, while cool, makes me think dusty….musty…..buggy. And speaking of buggy linens, the Daily Show AND the Today show just had bits on bedbugs and how big of a problem they are- on the same day. Good gawd America– whats happening over there?

I’ve seen on Design Sponge or Apartment Therapy or one of those type blogs neat collages of old pictures. My friend Abbey had something like this too. I’d like to get pictures (ideally wedding pictures) of our parents/grandparents/great-grandparents and have them on the wall going up the stairs or something like that. That’ll be a project for once we move home. But it got me to thinking.

What will we pass on to future generations? Will we buy a few hard drives, load all our pictures on them and give them to our kids and grandkids? Tell them to hang on to them and be careful and make sure to unplug them during storms and hopefully, maybe they’ll last until our great great grandchildren? What about our blogs? Will we include our website addresses in our wills or some other document that future generations can see? Will our blogs just remain up forever?

Its such a different time we live in. I wonder what will be interesting or worth keeping to our kids? Surely not our Crate and Barrel silverware or my OXO mixing bowls (which are rather wonderful as far as mixing bowls go).

One summer while I was home I spent hours upon hours scanning my dad’s pictures. My dad’s family only has one or two photo albums that just sort of get bounced between the families and I figured if someone didn’t start scanning them, they were bound to get lost or more damaged than they already were. My mom’s side of the family has managed to preserve far more (and in better condition) so that scanning project was put on hold. I love looking through the old photographs of people, their expressions, the clothes they were wearing, wondering what their lives must have been like. And all those wedding photos- thinking if those people hadn’t matched up, I wouldn’t be wrangling two kids named Nathan or Mackenzie (well, I probably wouldn’t be in the picture either). I think there is just something so very cool and connected about that.

my grandma

my grandpa and my dad

I hope someday my kids and grandkids think something of ours is memorable or worth keeping. Chances are it will be something from the 100Y store. That in our lives we don’t just end up with a big pile of crap and a few dozen hard drives with pictures.

Filed under: This Is My Life

This past weekend was our second attempt at camping. The last time we went Mackenzie wasn’t even one, we did it in a tent on the beach with a couple other families. This time it was in the middle of August; the hottest, most miserable month here, thankfully we stayed in a rustic-ish cabin. By rustic I mean it had a fridge, one lowly lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and AIR CONDITIONING. No sheets, no sink or bathroom but there was cold air circulating.

My take away is that any camping trip is a fun camping trip but this trip was way more buggy and a bit hotter than I’d care to repeat. Aside from bugs and sweat there was:

A very very packed car.

A beautiful beach.

Beautiful sunsets.

Grocery store feet and verrrry itchy bug bites. And a $6.50 itch stick purchase.

A dirty, wet, possibly smelly, hippy.

Fire and stick collecting. And stick collecting never gets old.

S’mores.

Buggy riding (thats what Nathan calls it anyway)

Fifteen Mini parking.

Snorkeling.

And even siblings getting along.

Filed under: The Whole Wide World, This Is My Life

Yesterday I had dentist appointments for both kids. After a particularly trying morning routine I barely managed to have everyone dressed, a bag packed with snacks and activities, water bottles filled and shoes on by 8:40 for a 9:00 appointment.

Once we got checked in the hygienist told me I needed to create new records for both kids. There were only two seats open so the kids shared one and I got the other. And because its the military and nothing can ever be simple this involved filling out approximately 18 different forms and some had to be done in pencil, some had to be done in pen, and some had to be done in marker. This wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if I didn’t have Mackenzie squirreling around in the seat next to me, alternating between pulling on my pen and shoving her brother in their shared seat (she’s a brute that one). And the icing on the cake was the lady telling me, “hmm….we have your appointments at 11 and 11:30….” Nuh. Uh. “I think we can work you in *much* sooner than 11 if you can just wait a little bit.” In my mind ‘wait a little bit’ was like 15 minutes. She clarified that by telling me “an hour or so.” Nope, that definitely won’t work for me and my ferrel children.

She must have read the expression on my face and decided, “actually — why don’t I just take you back and get started now.” Yes. That. Mackenzie screamed (expected), I had to pin her whole body down, and then screamed some more. The entire time Nathan quietly played a game on the phone (thank the Lord one child is old enough to behave in this scenario). They asked us to leave the room while they x-rayed her broken tooth and it was a nice little reprieve for 3 minutes to hear her scream and think ‘momentarily; not my problem. Also- how much do they pay you, dentist? Because surely its not enough.”

Once Mackenzie’s torture was over Nathan hopped in the seat and did exactly as he was told, was excited about his new toothbrush and the mini bottle of ACT. The 20 minutes of Nathan being worked on was no walk in the park with my fussy friend. It was a big oversight on my part to not remember the whole no eat/drink for 30 minutes after flouride and I had a mutiny on my hands when she saw the snacks I had packed in my bag. Nothing would distract her, somehow there were no movies, no tv shows no NOTHING on the two phones I brought (not one damn episode of Kai Lan? NOT ONE?), Im getting flustered and pissed off, Im carrying Mackenzie (WHY? Why am I carrying her? Thats because the wheel broke off our Maclaren stroller. And when I asked them about a replacement they told me to take it to an authorized retailer. Im approximately….what? 6,000 miles from my closest retailer?) and in her frustration everything I handed her got promptly thrown on the floor. Now, the overriding theme here was: TIRED, Nap Required but dangit if she wasn’t pushing me to my limit.

We promptly took our bags of loot and headed home. Mackenzie went straight to bed, I made lunch for Nathan and I and told him I needed to just sit for like 30 minutes. I felt like I had just finished a race. And I didn’t even get a cheap silver medal in the end. At least we were all cavity free.

Filed under: McSassy, Nate the Great

Heres the thing about my kid (the kid that’s old enough to know what is expected) he knows how to behave. He knows what we expect of him and most days we just bump along in neutral…..several reminders/corrections, maybe a timeout or two. Somedays are bad, so bad that I’ve explained what ‘being grounded’ is to a five year old (just discussing it is as far as we’ve gotten). But then there are some days, glorious glorious days where the stars align and birds sing and something just happens. Like today.

This afternoon after telling me he had a bad stomach ache (and me subsequently canceling our dentist appts) I had him lay down on the couch. With a bucket. Anyone who says they have a stomach ache automatically gets a bucket. Standard issue. Turns out the stomach ache was likely induced from him getting out of the pool multiple times and hoisting himself onto the side on his belly and then dragging himself out the rest of the way. After his little resty on the couch and missing the dr. appt’s we did a puzzle. Mackenzie didn’t nap. I went to get her. This made Nathan mad. A friend invited us to the beach. I said yes. I immediately changed my mind when Nathan was falling apart, thought his stomach still hurt, no-nap-Mac was freaking out about holding the phone (amongst other things) and I just had one of those sort of out of body experiences where I knew I needed to diffuse the situation before I was one of the people crying in a heap on the floor.

We went out in the backyard and because I couldn’t handle Mackenzie’s brain being set on repeat “Poo-yaya? Poo-yaya? Poo-yaya? poooYAAAAYAAAA?” I pulled the pool out. Everyone had a grand time and I even managed to (sort of) trim Mackenzie’s scraggly hair while she swam. When everyone had had enough fun I went in and bathed Mackenzie came back down and had Nathan come in but first asked him to clean the toys out of the pool. “Ugh…..WHY do I have to do that? Why cant we just let them dry out here?” So I went into a long dissertation about responsibility and how we all have to clean up after ourselves and whats going to happen when he’s a grown up and this is why Im trying to teach him to do this now, blah blah. He [begrudgingly] did it without complaint.

I come back inside, sweating from the oppressive hot humid day and told Nathan, “You are dripping wet, I want you to quickly go upstairs, take your suit off and put it in the tub. I want you to get in the shower, wash your hair and yourself, get the towel off the back of your bathroom door, dry off and get dressed and then come back down.” Lets be honest- that was a lot of instructions for a 5 year old. I figured I’d have to go up there and repeat myself. But, guess what? He did it. All of it. I didn’t have to repeat myself, I didn’t have to tell him twice. He just did it.

Mackenzie went up in her crib to “collect herself” (thats what we call it when you’re too tired and fussy to be downstairs and you just need 20 minutes to calm the heck down) and Nathan helped me start dinner. He pressed garlic and unloaded dishes and set the table. He came back into the kitchen and asked me, “what else can I do to help you mom?” Vindication: Im actually doing something right.

He loaded dishes and cleaned Mackenzie’s three sippy cups (dont ask) off the coffee table. I asked him to get out the ketchup and when I came back in from the grill there was ketchup, mustard, A1 sauce and ranch dressing set out.

We have a little barstool/window into the kitchen and Nathan is supposed to set his plate up there when he’s excused. Tonight he popped up, started walking around into the kitchen with his plate (which made me nervous because not 15 minutes prior I had smashed the shit out of a bowl. No really, you have no idea, I’ve never had anything shatter as bad as that bowl did), got out the step-ladder, rinsed his damn plate and loaded in the dishwasher. I shit you not. I was FLOORED.

WHY? WHYYYYYYYYYYY can’t kids do this all the time? We reward and encourage and high five and get ice cream and praise and praise and praise and yet its so hard. PC thought it deserved ice cream so we went to Yogurtland. We talked it up to Nathan that we expect him to have good behavior and good manners all the time, but times like today where he is “extra-special-good” as he calls it, we like to reward it with something like ice cream.

When we got back from ice cream, he came in and flopped on the floor. He lets out an exasperated sign and tells me, “ugh…..Im too tired to be a good listener. Im going to stop now.”

So. There you have it. (Incidentally he did still listen for the rest of the evening. But, tomorrow’s a new day.)

Filed under: Nate the Great

We’re getting desperate here on the far side of the planet. There is nothing on TV. At all. Im willing to lower my standards a bit over the summer because something is better than nothing but we’re becoming destitute.

Currently we watch: White Collar (LOVE), Vampire Diaries, GLEE, Bones, The Office aaaand….whatelse? Parks and Rec, 24, Chuck, The Good Wife, Mercy, Modern Family (LOVE), Royal Pains,…I think thats it.

Neither of us are really into reality TV so don’t go suggesting some lame variation of The Bachelor. Im totally over the, what?  14 different midget reality shows- those were entertaining for about 8 minutes. 9 max.

I’ve heard of Mad Men, would I like that? Or Breaking Bad? Tell me Im missing something good because otherwise Im going to be stuck watching Meredith Viera on the Today show as we wind down for the evening and she along with the zippy! cheeriness! of that show just makes me want to punch something.

And because I don’t expect something for nothing, let me tell you this: If you need a little something tasty to eat while you’re watching, um, whatever it is you watch, make this. You won’t be disappointed. You’ll like it even better with coffee. Just trust me.

Filed under: Because I'm NICE like that

The Dept of Defense is taking this whole DADT thing pretty seriously. Its trickled down to our level and I have to go with PC this morning to a meeting/panel/survey (Im not really sure what it is, I just know when to show up) to discuss it. Not only do they want the Marine’s input, they want spouse input as well. If I get called on, I have no idea what to say. Im guessing its a touchy subject to be putting out there? Im fairly confident in my stance, but I still wrestle with it. What I will say is YAY for the DOD for actually seeking our input on something that will directly affect us (us being military members and families). So often things are voted on by people who have never served in the military and have no real understanding of how their decisions will impact us. Im interested to see how this all plays out in the coming months.

Filed under: Military Life

Nathan didn’t start talking, really at all, until after his second birthday. It was a steep curve once he turned two and, as they say, he hasn’t stopped yet. A while ago PC tried to explain sarcasm to Nathan, a concept we thought was sort of too hard for him to understand. Wrong.

“Oh way to go Mackenzie, nice job spilling your milk. [long pause] Mom…..you know Im being sarcastic, right?”

—————–

Mackenzie’s chatter has been increasing rapidly and last night we heard her string three words together. But her new favorite phrase is “NO….MINE……NO……MINE.” And it usually occurs out in the family room while I’m in the kitchen and there is always a big scuffle and two kids yelling and me shouting, “HEY KNOCK IT OFF” from the kitchen which is usually futile and I keep wondering: when am I going to learn to just let them work it out themselves?

Filed under: yes he said that- and no I didn't teach him

PC and I have been having a lot of chats lately about the changes we have in the coming year. The biggest being the move and all that comes with it. We need car(s?) once we get back to the US. I say “car(s?)” because we did opt to store PC’s 1987 Honda Accord. And this isn’t any Honda Accord- this is Eugene. My grandpa found it for us when we were in college. Someone traded in their Accord for a golf cart at his shop. Eugene has been the most faithful most reliable little car. Its got,  I dunno…..150,000 miles? 170,000? I don’t remember, but its a lot. We’ve not had to put a single dime into that car aside from routine maintenance and replacing the radiator which was totally our own fault. I cannot say enough good things about Hondas.

Then there was that day in October ‘01. . We were on our way to work when PC rear-ended someone. The other car was a CRV and the only damage was a cracked wheel cover on the back. Eugene did not fare as well. His pop-up headlights, the bumper and the hood were crunched.

We bought a new hood and found one pop-up headlight at a junkyard. At the time we didn’t have the money to paint them so poor Eugene, the light blue Accord, had a black hood, one silver pop-up light and the other one was uncovered- it was just the bulb with no cover. Let me tell you – klassy doesn’t begin to cover it. And then we just left it like this. Im not sure if it was laziness or not wanting to spend the money. I was embarrassed that we lived in a nice neighborhood but had a car that looked like it belonged in a trailer park, but not embarrassed enough to actually fix it I guess.

We considered getting rid of Eugene when we moved to Virginia but then thought better of it (thankfully) and really it was the perfect car for PC to get to work. We considered getting rid of it again when we moved to Japan but the gov’t will store one vehicle for free and the fact remained that we owned that car outright–it wouldn’t cost us anything to store it. We sold my car, dropped Eugene off in Maryland and for the last 4.5 years he’s been sitting in some storage lot, hopefully getting started once a month, but maybe not. Who knows if the oil has been changed or the tires have been inflated or….yeah, who knows. Because of this I told PC we best be prepared to get two cars once we move. If Eugene can limp along a little longer, I guess I’ll swallow my pride and we’ll keep it (PC loves that car, ugly or not, so I guess I shouldn’t let it bother me), but Im thinking Eugene will have aged quite a bit in the last 4 years.

Now here is the part where you come in: what do we get? I posed this question on FB and am now even more confused than I was before. The cars we are considering are a Subaru Outback, a Lexus RXh, a Prius, uh….yeah, thats about it. I was hoping people would be all “yeah- get the outback” or “Prius’ are so cute!” but instead the two resounding comments I’ve gotten are “Waaaaait just a minute……you’re going to want a 3rd row of seats” and “minivans are the way to go.”

Here were my two criteria: 1) must not be American made 2) must not be a minivan.

Do you really think a 3rd row of seats are that critical? Even when we have visitors come to Japan (that usually means they are here for a couple weeks- not just a long weekend) we just suck it up and drive two cars. We aren’t going to buy a huge van for the 1-2 times a year we have company. I think the same would be true in the US. People mentioned needing the space to do carpools but Im too lazy to be installing and uninstalling carseats every other day for carpools. I’ll just drive myself. As for taking friends- we still have 1-2 empty spaces in the car depending on if PC is with us or not. I guess what Im saying is that Im still having a hard time seeing the practicality of having a less fuel efficient, larger, more expensive van/car just to take 2 more passengers. I know you can fit more in a van and Im sure there are occasions that its really useful to have that extra space, but, I dunno, to that I just say we’ll manage. We’ve lived over here for almost 5 years and every time we’ve bought a piece of furniture or have had to move something big we just borrow a car or pay to have it delivered or whatever. For the few times we’ve needed it it certainly wouldn’t justify owning a larger vehicle.

So tell me, what kind of car would you recommend? What do you like and why?

Filed under: This Is My Life

I heard all of this in a span of about 30 minutes:

“five year olds like to help their moms”

“five year olds are very good at obeying”

[going thru a basket of planes] “this isn’t really something a five year old likes to play with. You can get rid of it.”

“Five year olds are more quiet”

“What I do to be more quiet is [zip mouth closed] just shut my mouth.”

“Five year olds eat salad.”

[hands on hips, looking at me from the side] “I love being five.”

I think I love it too.

Filed under: yes he said that- and no I didn't teach him