wow

surely it's not this easy.

3 pees on the toilet, and one on the potty today! yay K!

bedtime - asleep in less than 15mins ALL BY HERSELF!! J or I usually lie there with her until she falls asleep...sometime between 30-45mins. But tonight, I did our usualy bedtime routine: brush teeth, read books, turn off light. then instead of just lying there with her, I said to K "Mummy just has to go check on something in the other room. I will be baack in a minute, can you lie here quietly until I get back." then went outside the room for a min or two, then went back in and said "I am back" (to which she was VERY excited to see me. Then a few minutes later, I did the same thing, staying away for 2-3mins, then went back in. Then again, planning to stay away for 5mins or until she yelled out for me....but there was no cries, no running around the room. Just a little girl who fell asleep! yay K!

let's see what happens tomorrow.....

32/47

After reading this post on Cherry Blossom Adventures about how many prefectures in Japan you had been to, I thought I should borrow the idea and post too, since it does involve two of my very favourite things:
1) travel and
2) lists!!

But while doing this, I realised that I have forgotten a lot of information, like place names/dates etc for most of the places. I really should write this down before I forget for ever, right!? Gotta go back and look through photos to work that one out - sounds like a new project for a rainy day! I also realised that I had been to one more pref than I had thought, so my total so far is 32/47....only 15 more to go!

I've been here:

Hokkaido
1. Hokkaido - Sapporo Yuki matsuri with L&L; when on JET with my parents and friend J-ko; June Road trip with J

Tohoku
2. Aomori - Road trip with J
3. Iwate - 3 day long w/end road trip with J and 5 others
4. Miyagi - Road trip with J to Sendai area
5. Akita
6. Yamagata

Kanto
10. Gunma
11. Saitama - one week homestay as uni student to Kawagoe
12. Chiba - Bosohanto road trip 2009
13. Tokyo - lived there
14. Kangawa - live there; many travels

Chubu
15. Niigata - ski; Sado Island Summer Taiko festival with K "Earth Celebration"
17. Ishikawa - Noto Peninsula road trip with J
19. Yamanashi - camping
20. Nagano - ski
21. Gifu - road trip with J to shirakawa-go, Hida Takamatsu
22. Shizuoka - on our recent road trip to Hamanako
23. Aichi - Nagoya Expo; recent road trip with J to Hamanako

Kansai
26. Kyoto - 3 times for sightseeing plus 2 times for work
27. Osaka - 3 times sightseeing
28. Hyogo - once maybe 2times sightseeing
29. Nara - 3 times sightseeing

Chugoku
34. Hiroshima - 2 times sightseeing, 2 times skiing

Shikoku
39. Kochi - to Shimanto-gawa for a weekend away

Kyushu
40. Fukuoka - several times, usually to trip the light fantastic at the Crazy or Happy Cock bars when I was young and carefree!!
41. Saga - skiing once, been THROUGH it several times...
42. Nagasaki - lived there, traveled there several times
43. Kumamoto - several times
44. Oita - lived there
45. Miyazaki - lived close to the border, so often hopped across for some Miyazaki beach action or just a day drive. I like Miyazaki!
46. Kagoshima - several times
47. Okinawa - once, last week to the mainland

My to-go-to list:
7. Fukushima
8. Ibaraki
9. Tochigi
16. Toyama
18. Fukui
24. Mie
25. Shiga
30. Wakayama
31. Tottori
32. Shimane
33. Okayama
35. Yamaguchi
36. Tokushima
37. Kagawa
38. Ehime

and the good thing abt japan is...

that when the champas runs out, there are always chuhai(in very stylish aussie stubbie cooler)!
oh,and gaijin wife-dont get too far on your plans for a wine cellar raid, all we have is abt 2doz bottles of malbec(a fab red we "found" in argentina,but bought at costcos, lol) and a few champas so dont get too excited!

this was nice

nearly polished off a bottle (french brut rose, probably just a cheapie,from the tjkr wine cellar!) with dinner. j is off for a "nap" (wuss) while i find some more edamame as つまみ (its ok coz its veges) to go with my last glass of champas
TGIF, right!?

Thanks, am feeling better

Spent the weekend eating brownies and easter eggs, and lazing around doing nothing. Absolutely nothing - no tears or crazy moments, just a bit of apathy towards everything. Everytime I went to grab another brownie, I saw J eyeing me off, but he was too smart to actually SAY anything, lol!!

We did get to go to the yakitori joint at the 商店街 at our station (about like, 3 mins walk away). Sunday nights are half price yakitori (although other kushi are full price, like 豚バラetc) so we still ended up paying about 2500yen each. When I was in Kyushu, it was ALWAYS 3500yen per person when we went out for yakitori or yakiniku, so wierd - no matter how much we ate or drank, it always turned out to be the same price...and we used to eat and drink a LOT. This time we didn't eat or drink ourselves stupid, as unfortunately, the yakitori was pretty average, and the chuhais pretty weak. But I still felt a bit tipsy after I had a beer and a lime chuhai at the yakitori place! So we stopped off at the conbini on the way home where a few more chuhais were bought (J: "are you gonna drink more?" Me: "yes, you got a problem with that?" J (silence) lol!!) and I came home and polished them off and felt all warm and fuzzy (and a bit soppy) for a few hours before bed.

After my weekend of slobbery and laziness, I decided that I was going to come back to the world of living on Monday, so woke up early(ish) and since it was a lovely warm day, opened all the windows to let the sun and breeze in and did some spring cleaning. I think it was just what I needed. I have been feeling ok actually this week, I think I made the decision to move forward and am doing ok with that. Had a brief moment today of the sorry-for-myself blues, but managed to snap myself out of it with a slice of cheese pizza. The aim is actually to lose some of the weight that I somehow managed to pile on in the last few weeks, although you would never know it with my current eating patterns.

I am thankful to everyone for their kind words and comments and recounts of own experiences - it is nice to know that you are thinking of us. I am glad that I wrote on my blog, I really feel that it was a step that has helped me to get through this.

I have also seen some good come out of the whole experience:

I had my first pap smear in about 2 years (since K's birth actually) on my first trip to the ob/gyn - it came back clear

I had a breast check, as I thought I felt a lump and had some pain in my left breast for a few weeks - it came back clear too, was most likely pregnancy related

I also brought up a lingering (minor) health worry that I had with the doctors and got tests run for that - am waiting for results which will probably come out next week. If I hadn't have been going through the pregnancy/misscariage, then I would never have gotten around to going to the doctors, especially for the pap smear or other test so I am thankful to our angel for being the 切っ掛け to get the tests done. I do believe that everything happens for a reason, and maybe that was one of the reasons our angel was with us.

Post for our Easter Angel

Sorry we never got to meet you, but we were really looking forward to it. Since you left us at Easter, I decided that you must be our Easter Angel. I hope that you are somewhere out there, looking out for us. Thank you for giving us some hope.

************************
I want to have a place to remember our "bambino" and while I am normally a private person, I think that our Easter Angel deserves to be physically remembered somewhere, and I have chosen my blog for that. So I am writing about (with far TMI) the details of the few short days our bambino was with us.
*******************

Was so excited when I found out I was pregnant, I literally peeed (how many e's are necessary there) when I was 1 min late. But I knew even before the pee test that I was pregnant. Week 3 and I had horrible lower back/side pains, which I attributed to sleeping wrong. And I was so tired. After hearing horror stories of pregnant women being turned away from hospitals here when 5 weeks pregnant (already full/not accepting any more pregnant women) I was down at the doctors in week 4. They told me that our bambino was small, only 3mm, but they made it sound like as though it was so early anyway that it wasn't a problem, and to come back in two weeks. I think pregnancy is a bit of a mind game too - as soon as I walked out of the doctors I was nauseous and had to nap every day with K as was so worn out.

Used on of those on-line due date calculators, and the EDD was Nov 21st, which would have been right around J and my 4th wedding anniversary (19th Nov).
Spent two weeks being strong when out shopping - not buying those cute spring/summer t-shirts for myself as I assumed I would be too big to wear them anyway.
Imagined how K would be with a little bro/sis as she loves playing with her dolls at the moment.
Thought about getting a sling this time instead of the stupid nina-nanna carrier I had for K when she was newborn....yep, let my mind run away with lots of baby thoughts.....
Somehow put on nearly 2kg too!! Didn't feel any nausea, but didn't think anything of it, as I never had it with K anyway. Although I did think that putting on weight was a bit wierd - with K I totally lost my appetite, and could only eat nashi for the first few months.

6w2d - back to the doctors. Bambino measured only 15mm, a little gestational sac showed up on the screen, but we couldn't see a heartbeat. The doctors told me again that bambino was very small....(the ultrasound picture had bambino dated as 4w5d size), and I bled a little after the internal exam. There was nothing said outright, but I was told not to rush out and get a 母子手帳, and come back if there was any heavy bleeding or cramping.

Two days later, spotting. Rang doctors and was rudely/abruptly told that nothing would have changed in the two days since my doctors appointment, and to ring again if the bleeding got heavier. Intermident cramping over the next few days, and feeling of "not being pregnant" any more. I was trying so hard to be positive, but I think I already knew that our bambino had left us.

7w5d - suspiciously period-like tummy pains, and an increase in bleeding, although not like period bleeding.

7w7d Rang the doctors in the morning and they said I should come in for a check up, but of course they don't take appointments, and I would have to be there before 11:30am to be seen ,as they don't see anyone in the afternoons. Well, it wasn't possible to get in that day, so waited until early morning to go, and spent hours that night looking up everything about miscarriages and d and cs on the internet.

8wd1 - Friday, April 10th. J came to the doctors with me first thing in the morning.
The doctor did an internal check, but they didn't show me the ultrasound screen. Despite everything, until she actually said the words, I still thought there might be some hope. But she said that the baby had stopped growing at around 4wks, and that it was a missed abortion. Her words hit me like a brick. She said I needed to have a d and c. I asked about other options, but apparently in Japan it is not approved to use medicines to speed up the start of bleeding, and she did not recommend expectant management, especially with having to look after K, in case I needed to be hospitalised in a hurry if there were problems with the natural misscariage. In some ways, I feel that I cheated out bambino by taking the "easy way out" - I thought I wanted to go through the whole process naturally, but now that it is over, I guess the d and c procedure was a good way to have closure. At the hospital I went to, a d and c is an inpatient procedure, where you have to be hospitalised in the afternoon and then have the procedure the next morning, being released later that day. But J had an important business meeting Sat (this) morning that he just couldn't get out of, so there would have been no one to look after K (dont get me started on this....the PIL are away, but only and hour away, and J wouldn't think to ring them to come back to look after k for a few hours.....just shows how TOTALLY alone I am if anything ever happens.......makes me wish I was back in Oz, where at least family and friends around that I know would drop everything and help out)

So I said we would have to wait until sometime next week to book the procedure, but the doctor said that I should have it done as soon as possible, because I could end up miscarriaging naturally before then anyway.....I asked it if was possible to have the procedure as an outpatient. First response - no not possible. Then, after lots of humming and haaaing, they tell me that they could do it! I am really grateful to them for bending the rules for us, something that doesn't happen so much in Japan. It was the same hospital that I gave birth to K in, so they all remembered me, and were all very nice.

10:30am - taken to my room for the day, changed into hospital nightie, had explanation of procedure. shed a few tears when the nurses left.

11:00am - shot in shoulder to relax my muscles. made my mouth all dry.
11:20am - they took me in to have the iv drip inserted
11:25am - drugs to knock me out. but I have a vague recollection of things happening. I "remember" saying "it hurts" during the procedure as I cold feel something, but wonder if that was only in my mind, or if I actually said the words out loud? I "remember" when they had finished, them trying to put the shop bought undies on me, and saying that they were too small (I was so embarrased). I "remember" being moved from the chair to a stretcher, or the strecher to my bed, and the nurse trying to bend my leg....
12:20pm - awoke back in the room, groggy and SOOOOOOO thirsty
13:30pm - the nurse brought around hospital lunch for me. Even though I said I didn't want anything to eat, I scarfed down the less than average soba noodles.
14:30pm - another check, and they said I was ok, so I could get everything ready for discharge
15:30pm - J came back to pick me up, we paid the 21300yen and left.

I was still a bit tired last night and today (had to go back to the doctors this morning for another check up) and have had a nasty headache all day, but a dozen easter eggs last night, and a half a batch of brownies tonight and I am feeling ok.

I made J promise to take me to the local yakitori place tomorrow night - I plan on eating lots of tsukune and 梅じそささみ and drinking a few too many chu-hais.

I don't feel angry or resentful. But I am sad. I think I can actually come to terms with the idea that this time it just wasn't meant to be.

Hopefully somewhere out there our Easter Angel is gonna look out for us - we need you right now!

another day....

another easter egg hunt!

Thursday's playgroup - Easter Picnic.
Fantastic weather - at least 23deg.
Great choice of picnic site - park by the bay, 開放感* to the max
Easter Eggs galore - 94 plastic eggs, and 7 kids!! (seriously, eggs galore! was expecting more kids)
Entertainment - watching 7 kids scramble on the grass gathering 94 eggs and putting them into their "heartfully made"** milk carton easter baskets.

Happy Easter

Hot Glitters


* is that a real word?
** now, I made that word up. I think. Or it might be Japlish.

a bit of fun

can't sleep....again. so I thought I would purty up my page.

the last few nights I have been a bit insomniac-y.
it *might* have something to do with finding CastTv (thanks Illahee!!) where I have started watching "Samantha Who?" and "Private Practice". I watched S04E01 of GA, but then found that I had to pay to watch the next several episodes, so have taken my viewing elsewhere until I find a suitable free GA S04 viewing platform. Oh, I tried "Lime Wire" but all I ended up downloading was the audio, no vision- (did I do something wrong Nooh??? )

7 things 2 year old K loves

Gaijin wife tagged me for this meme a while back, but I thought it might be cute to do it for K.

1. Noonles.
Or as most of us know them, Noodles. Any type will do - udon, spaghetti, macaroni, soba....and any type of sauce or soup with them, but spag bol is a favourite.

2. Dressing up.
Every day K pulls out about half the clothes in her drawers and puts them on, usually on top of each other - she sometimes has up to 5 layers of t-shirts on at a time. Favourites seem to be her rain coat or winter snowsuit!

3. Anpanman.
Despite never seeing the cartoon, she loves the characters.
We have an anpanman toothbrush and anpanman nappies. Whenever K brings out her aquadoodle or crayons, it is always "mummy, anpanman....." how do you think I got the practise in to make the cake? lol

4. Red wellies.
K always tries to put on her Red wellies when we are leaving the house. I try to hide them sometimes, but if I forget, and she gets to the genkan before me....it is a day out in the red wellies!!

5. R-chan.
K really loves R. She can get a little rough for R, and R runs away, but I think R loves her too (except when K insists on pulling her tail...what is it about kids and animals tails??) They are good together, and I am glad that K will grow up with R.

6. Singing.
We sing a lot, and lots of songs. It is hard to say what is K's favourite song, as it seems to change a bit (at the moment, she seems hooked on "みんな違って、みんないい" from 日本語で遊ぼう on nhk, which is sung by konishiki - how random!
At bed time, she often asks me to sing "ABC" and "Where is Thumbkin".
In the bath, she often asks me to sing "Ga-lump went the little green frog"
Her repertoire is endless...

7. Reading "Hop on pop"
This is one of K's favourite bedtime books. And K has memorised it all, and can say it at the right time when I turn the page. Other books we read at bedtime are "Little Ernie's ABC's" and "Bedtime Peekaboo". K loves reading, and I am happy that we have our little pre-sleep book ritual.

wow, I got to 7 already, but there is still so much more to say....like
K loves having a bath with daddy
K loves her doll, "baby"
K loves talking with nanna and pop on skype, and showing off in the background to them!
K loves her friend from playgroup, "T"
K loves being tickled
K loves playing on Rody
K loves stacking her blocks...and tipping them over
K loves saying "kusai" and "oshiri"
K loves her Aussie cousins, K and T, and loves picking up the photo of them and giving them a kiss
K loves watching kids shows on TV, especially いないなばぁ、おかあさんといっしょ and　天才テレビくん... I think she dreams of being on TV herself one day
K loves waving goodbye to trains
K loves being told she is kawaii or pretty
and of course there is plenty more, but there was only s'possed to be a list of 7.

Happy Birthday to K

Thursday was K's 2nd birthday.
On Wed afternoon, a package arrived from my sister, and K was so excited I let her open it which was hilarious - my sister had wrapped up about 6 different presents and put them in one of those aust post bubble wrap packs. K was pulling it to pieces to get the presents out. She got some very cute summer clothes - singlets, boardies, summer dress, a picture of her cousins in an Australia photo frame (complete with Kangaroo, Koala, Platypus and Kookaburra on the side of the frame) and a book. One of the singlets has wings on the back - sooo cute, and K loves it - she put it on straight away, and I had visions of her wearing it to bed, but I managed to hide it while she was in the bath, phew.

Thursday, K turns 2!! We had playgroup in the morning, so K wore her winged singlet (with long sleeve shirt underneath, very fashionable), and her "2 today" badge. The kids all sang happy birthday to her at playgroup during song time, and I read "Spot's Birthday Surprise" as I was story leader.

After playgroup, we stopped by the Anpanman Museum, as K seems to be might anpanman obsessed recently. She has never seen the cartoon, but it doesnt matter - Anpanman is EVERYWHERE in Japan. It is on her nappies, on all the family restaurant menus, on rice crackers, the song was sung at jidokan.....whenever K has crayons and paper, she asks me or J to draw anpanman, she loves it! We didn't go into the actual museum (which is more like a play area) as it was already encroaching on K's nap time, but there are heaps of shops outside that you can walk around and get a few good photo ops. Splurged (!?!) and got an Anpanman AND a Baikinman stuffed toy for her birthday.

Got home to a box from my parents with more presents - fantastic wooden jig-saw puzzles (one animal theme which had K singing Old MacDonalds farm for the rest of the night), and some more summer dresses. I managed to skype my parents just as K was opening the presents, so that was lots of fun.

In keeping with the self-appointed anpanman theme, I made up a, you guessed it, anpanman cake. Followed this recipe for the cake (simple, standard cake, but very yummy fresh out of the oven!) and "iced" it in whipped cream. the only downfall came because J was home while I was decorating it, and told me to cut it in half and fill with cream and strawberries....we obviously had different ideas about what is a birthday cake (bloody japanese and their strawberry shortcake obsession). The cake I had made was a very Aussie recipe, so it did not go well with the cream/strawberry mix. But it was more about the presentation really, ahem, so a few thoughtfully placed peaches, strawberry and raisins and some chocolate decoration pen, and voila, Anpanman cake was born!!



K blew out the candles then pushed it around on her plate for a while, so I guess she had fun with it.

Sunday April 5th we had a family birthday party at the PIL's, which included 赤飯 (for K) and 毛蟹 (I am guessing that was for our benefit!) as well as some other yummy stuff. K was spoilt again with more presents - a cute white (I know, how that hell am I gonna keep it that way?) summer dress and a mini keyboard that plays all her favourite songs. oh, and a money envelope which will go into her account....when I get around to opening it(the account, I mean...the envelope was opened as soon as we got outside the house, lol.)

Riding high on the success on the anpanman cake, I decided to do an encore with a number "2" shape cake to take to the PIL's for K's family birthday dinner. But this was gonna be with real icing. Small catastrophe when I attempted orange flavoured icing and the butter curdled, but second time around a vanilla flavoured icing was born! Got a bit artsy and decided to make the "2" shape into a giraffe, which is one of K's favourite animals. At least K realised it was a giraffe, so that is all that matters. Oh, and the iced cake was much yummier than the cream decorated cake, so there you go! Just goes to show I shouldn't mix my sponges with my icing or my western cakes with cream, or something like that.

and here is the masterpiece...wrapped in plaaaa-stic:

All in all, I was pretty proud of my very first ever attempts at baking a cake (other than carrot cake etc) and of decorating it. I am sure next year I am going to be fine with the 3 story princess castle design........lol.

As for K, she loved singing Happy Birthday, but still answers １才 when asked how old she is, despite several days of practising ２才. I thought it would be nice to do the "things I love" meme about 2 yo K for my next post, which is also my 200th, to remember what our darling daughter is into at 2yo. My goodness they grow so quickly......Happy Birthday K - love you to bits!