I feel like that Macaulay Culken kid in Home Alone

or maybe Miss Piggy.

J is off to China this time, for a week, for work. He left at about 4pm this afternoon from Haneda (so he had to go to work at normal time this morning)
I don't know what it is about him being away, but I might have gone a bit mental today.

I had several cups of tea. So I needed something to go with my tea. So I ate half a pack of country ma'am biscuits....and K and I made a chocolate cake, but turns out she didn't like it, so I had to eat it -- with whipped cream leftover from pancakes breakfast on the weekend.

I am feeling like I wanna throw up about now ;(

I have also been skyving around on yahoo auction all day. And bought myself a nappy bag *finally!*

I have been looking at the skip hop dash deluxe for more than 2 months, and wanting to order it from o/s as it works out almost half the price of retail price here in Japan. But I have just not gotten around to sitting in front of the computer long enough to actually order it....so today I put the disney cartoon network on (we are trialling hikari TV, as we just changed internet provider to hikari flets because we got a deal when the new Yamada denki opened up just down the road: buy a 32 inch TV for 500yen IF you sign up with hikari flets. The Tv is now in the playroom, a.k.a our winter hideout and we are now on flets.) So anyway, K has been entertained all day by the likes of "Olivia", "The Suite Life" and soon to be a bit of "Hannah Montana" me thinks. L is happy just wandering around, clapping and trying to eat whatever he can find (DVDs, K's toys, socks, etc etc) And I have been in front of the computer enjoying the thrills of the auction. I have also semi-unwittingly upped the price of a set of 4 nappy covers to 2.5 times the starting price (I bid at 1300yen, for the 4 -- bargain!). I am now "in the lead" for buying them -- auction closes in 4 hours so will see if they come my way, or I have to do some more tricky auction moves to win (must set a final price I am willing to pay for them or else I can see myself getting caught up in the moment and paying something rediculous, lol.

*************
7:12pm and just over an hour left on the nappies, I am still in the lead! lol
This auction stuff is all very exciting.

***************
8:45pm and the auction is still going!!
I was a bit naive, it seems, in assuming that bidding 5 hours before end time I would be in the running. Some serious players came out in the last few minutes and started a bidding war, which I participated in ;) Was a bit of an adrenaline rush!!! My highest bid of 4400yen held on until 1 min beforewas outbidded, (thankfully, was starting to get a bit worried I might actually have to buy it for that price, lol!). Final price was 4900yen - still a bargain for 4 new nappy covers, but higher than I was willing to go this time. But there is always next time.... ;)

taking a sickie

L was awake at 6am this morning. He prob would have slept a bit longer if only I wasnt fussing over him, checking to make sure he could breath -- looked to me like his head was wedged between the pillow and J's body, and I was worry-warting ;(

Lots of wind and rain over night and this morning, so I decided to proclaim a sickie for the day, and had 3 cups of tea before 9am in my pjs. But we had to get changed into real clothes as J is off to China next week and needed his shirts dry-cleaned, so into the car and down to the dry-cleaners, and quick stop off at the ymca there to see if they do 一時保育 at the nursery there (they don't) before heading home.

It looked like it was gonna end up being a fine day, so I did a load of washing, which I have just remembered about now (it is hanging outside....and it has started raining again, oh well.)

Sandwiches in the living room for lunch, as we are on day2 of our 3 month trial of hikari tv. bring on the cartoon network. Did you know that Olivia is a cartoon!!??? But apparently even K can get bored watching tv all day, as shown by her actions just now of clanging about the money box, thus waking up a sleeping L, of course just after I poured a cuppa (altho, admittedly it is my 5th for the day now, so I probably really dont need it)

And now that everyone is awake, I guess that means my sickie is over for the day. Better do something. I am thinking of tackling the clutter in the living room -- wish me luck!!

Oh and we are looking for a one day a week day care option for K. She will go to "pre-school" (the Japanese bastarised version, which is actually a pre-pre-school one day a week thing) but I want to put her into day care for one more day a week, so that I can take L to playgroup. I am waiting to hear back from a few places, including the nursery school about 100m away (close would be good) and an international kindy near playgroup (they have a drop-in system, so I could put her in for just the 2 hours or so we are at playgroup). I guess in the end price will be the biggest deciding factor.

four hundred

It's my 400th post -wow!

Thought I should write something so as my MIL rant is not the first thing that pops up on my computer everytime I open it (J *CAN* read English, after all. Soft, ain't I, lol!)

Seems fitting that since this is a celebratory post, I should mention that I won a competition across at Homemade Mom. (thanks again!) I am looking forward to claiming my prize and trying out the "Sing with Olive" application from Swagsoft soon (well, K, not me, will be singing with Olive)

And what else is there to celebrate? TGIF, of course...even if Fri afternoon happy hour is only in my mind ;P

Why the hell....

(a.k.a. "some MIL gems from the weekend away")

Why the hell does she
* ignore the kids... until *I* go to them to hold their hand/pick them up/ whatever, then all of a sudden she rushes in.

* then ignore the kids a few seconds later when she thinks of something else (e.g. "ooh, look, a pretty flower") meanwhile the kid is left tottering on the edge of the stairs, or in the middle of the road or something.

* spend the entire dinner time asking K if she will eat some x, y z from HER plate. K has a plate of her own, let her eat her own stuff FIRST!

* spend the last half of the dinner telling K "If you don't finnish your dinner up, yaddi-yaddi-yah" when it turns out that BEFORE dinner, she plied same kid with a packet of chips (without telling me), but still expects her to eat all her meal?!?!

* then go and buy a dessert for the same kid she had just told off at dinner for not finishing it!

* pick up a happy baby from downstairs where I am, take him upstairs, then promptly leave him on the floor in the living room (where there are a set of stairs with no gate on them) while she fluffs about in the kitchen doing not much at all.

* sneak food to the kids - she seriously gives it to them only when I am not around, really sneaky like, esp when I catch her out. She never tells me she has given them anything, so when L comes up to me munching, of course I get worried that he has swallowed something he shouldn't have/picked up off the ground etc.

* get all offensive when, after she picks L up and shows him the strawberries for dessert, I say "please dont feed him strawberries as he hasn't had them yet". she says "I wasn't gonna GIVE him any". (yeah, right)

* insist on giving me those bloody uht milks for my tea. I DRINK REAL MILK IN MY TEA. (Lots of it, so one of those piddly creamers doesnt even whet the spot!)

aaah, nothing major, I know, but geez it annoys me, lol!

We're on our way

To the tip of the Izu penninsula again. Let's hope J booked the hotel for the right night this time(^з^)-☆
PIL are with us too -- bet they wouldn't be impressed if we get there and have to turn back lol.

Oh yeah and it's snowing!!! Brrrrr

get me some chicken on a stick!

So I wasn't gonna let go of what may be my only chance to get to yakitori, so when we woke up Sun morning, I did a search of yakitori joints around....anyway, J suggests we go to the Fukui (pref) style of yakitori/kushiyaki place Akiyoshi. So we headed out in the freezing cold SNOWing even, for an early dinner (got there just after 4pm).

This place has really small skewers, so you can eat about 20 or 30 each. It was yummy, but I would have liked to have seen more choice on the menu, esp if you eat so many (we had to order the same dish a couple of times). Still with a beer and a chu-hai each it was a good night, worth all 7500yen it cost ;) Even if we did have to supplement with Maccas on the way home (K wanted chips, and an apple pie for dessert for me didn't go astray either!!)

SOOOOO this means I can cross off #17 of my 1001 things in 101 days now too, woo-hoo.