Pregnancy: rage and suspenders

Am in the throes of pregnancy rage -- is that a real thing??? Well, it is either the pregnancy, or the massive amount of chocolate I have stuffed myself with the last week.

And I blame Costco and those mother-f&ing choc muffins! (My lack of will-power does NOT come into play, tyvm).

As I say am not sure if the rage officially comes from pregnancy or chocolate (am willing to test this theory out post-partum with another chocolate face-stuffing session, so will be sure to report back with results;)
But there have been a few incidents in the last day or so, namely:
* a stoopid woman driving a kei-car the size of a kids toy-car, who seriously nearly wiped me and my car out while trying to reverse into the parking lot beside me at the shops. There was no other car in sight (nine parked the other side if the empty carpark she was trying to get into) yet she came in on such a bad angle that she literally missed the back of my car by a cats whisker....just as I came back to my car do I witnessed it all. When I held up my hands to get her to stop, she was like , "it's ok, I'm watching where I am going" and I was like all raging back at her: "wtf lady, you are driving a bloody match-box car lady--you shouldn't be this close to my car to start with!!!??"

* Then we are driving down a narrow road, where you have to schlop off to the side to let a car pass if one comes from the other way, so I am schlopping left when one of the school kids who were playing baseball in the middle of the said road(this is right at an (albeit small) intersection, mind you), pitches the ball over the top of my car to the kid half on the road, half in the yard in front if me (and between me and the car coming the other way) so I rolled down the windows and have them BOTH a serving for bring such doofuses!!

But in general, J takes the cake at the moment for being such a great target for my rage. I organize places to go with the kids (little events, even just going to the shops or a walk to the park or something) but I swear he just acts like such a dead-sh&t, seems totally removed from the family unit (like, walking on his own one step behind us, with us being me holding both kids hands) or just acts uninterested in anything;(
Then last night K was so excited to show him some things we bought for her upcoming birthday party, but he couldn't even sit through looking at them all (like a few minutes) and when I called him out on it, he was like "so I get in trouble for not looking at every single thing?" What he doesn't get is that it happens all the time -- he tunes out, appears uninterested..
I totally can't even be bothered talking to him. (End rant;)

As for the suspenders, I'm surprised I didn't think of this before (at least by pregnancy #2)!! What a great idea to hold up those maternity pants with the elastic waist-bands that keep slipping off my enormous belly.!! I will be making much use of my new suspenders for the next month, even if they really do make me look like a circus clown ;)

Hazy Sunday BBQ

J's friends came over today for Lunch.
They arrived over an hour EARLY-- I was still in my pj's having spent the morning making salads and side dishes and cleaning out the kids playroom while the kids totally trashed the living room. I then never even got a chance to clean up the living room before they troddled upstairs. Talk about bring totally caught out. Who the hell arrives an hour early (other than the PlL but I expect that from them at least now)

There were three families who came and we basically spent the whole day eating and drinking--our planned bbq was brought inside thanks to the eerie yellow hazy sky that blanketed Kanto today.
Pre-lunch we snacked on carrots/cucumber/paprika sticks, cheese, sun dried tomatoes and corn chops. Lunch was roast chicken, Italian sausages (chicken and apple, and habanero and cheese), roast potato and onion, green salad, Greek salad, Chinese cabbage salad, corn bread rolls from Costco. Post lunch was pizzas, followed by another round of cheese&biccies with grapes; soy-beans; mussels in garlic butter; popcorn...

We didn't get around to eating dessert until 6pm!

When everyone left at 8pm, my kids wanted more food--I managed to persuade them to eat up bread rolls and leftover chicken;)

Talk about a mammoth day. I had to sit on the sofa (as in could not move) for about 40mins around 2pm after having standing up all day, ouch, my back!!!

And while I am enjoying my cuppa to wind down now, another night of bloody baseball on TV is haunting me, haha. When will the World Series it whatever it is be over??

Defeats the purpose

Have several of J's friends coming over tmr for a bit of a barbie. Want to get some prep and cleaning done but L is in clingy mode. Even putting Doraemon on --he won't watch it unless it is from my lap!! Totally defeats the purpose, right?! Lol.

I don't even have a cuppa (can't get up to make one) to get me through the trauma of having to sit through an episode of Doraemon :(

TGMF and manuka

There Goes My Friday (night)...
J usually goes to the gym Fri nights. And sometimes Tues nights. I kinda expect to have to do the kids bath-bed routine myself, and when I don't fall asleep with them, enjoy an hour or so of English sitcoms or tv-dramas. Currently just limited to NCIS LA (since Glee finished on nhk, and I haven't been faffed to turn the computer on to stream Mad Men, and am pretty current with Downton & Good Wife) .
But still, I enjoy my English tv time.
Not tonight though. It's been HOURS of bloody baseball. In general, I actually enjoy watching most sports on tv, but think baseball is more boring than watching toenails grow. I kept on expecting it to end, but it is still going!!!

So I have up on my tv time, and spent the night researching New Zealandish Manuka honey -- its a welcome present for the PIL (my folks will be here in April) and J also wants some for a business colleague. But gee it's confusing!!! All the UMFs and MGOs and I still can't make a decision about which is the best buy. They now also have Australian Manuka honey too!! plus we saw it at costcos today for about 3000yen (500g jar of 10+; same brand selling at an online Aus store for just over $20.) so am wondering if we don't just buy it here and be done with it!
And anyway--I can't even touch the stuff as it gives me an allergic/asthmatic reaction so I'm happy if my parents keep that luggage space for more important items. Like easter eggs, and dedicated coconut, and decaf tea bags, and tinned spaghetti and baked beans;)

Having troubles commenting on my own blog;(

From the iPhone. Boo-hoo! Will try to fix it. In the meantime, thanks to Gaijinwife and Kyushukel for the recent comments-- you must have inspired me to at least try blogging again;)

Have just uploaded the blogger app for iPhone, trying to find my way around that for now.

L won a giraffe!!

Seriously;)
We never win anything. Most recently, we tried to win tickets for Disneyland by collecting the points off the bread (only bought yamazaki bread for two or three months, and must have sent in at least a dozen forms)...but nada.
I think the last thing I actually won was a Paula Abdul LP, or was it the Bobby Brown LP - cant remember which came last, since I was in about 7th or 8th grade!!

So after we went to the zoo a couple of weeks ago, answered the sticker quiz and put our entry in the box we all forgot about the competition...until the doorbell rang at 7:50pm last night and the postie delivered L his very own plastic giraffe model toy. He was totally taken with it-it slept with him, ate breakfast with him, rode in the car with him to drop K off at school...not sure what happened to it after that, though;)

K was kinda pisses she didn't win anything, but we put her entry into the draw for the main prize, so I guess that was out fault for aiming high. I still think its a rort that most competitions in Japan make you choose which prize you are going for. No such thing as runners-up when you've only got one chance;(

So yeah, don't know if I am "back" blogging or not(can only access my blog thru iPhone as forgotten my password, and blogging from an iPhone is kinda painful!!) but for some reason (for the first time in a long time) I felt like posting--all thanks to a little plastic giraffe.
How Random;)

David Bowie And Nike

"ch-ch-ch-changes♪"
The months of April and May have brought us many!
* k turned 5. No longer a baby at five years old;( you can see the difference in her too -- my little baby girl all grown up(;;)
* k started pre-school. She is nen-chu. She LOVES it, wants to leave the house before 8:30 most mornings to get there early;)
* L turned 2! My, how those two years have flown. And he has FINALLY started sleeping through the night - by which I mean 7:30pm until 4:30am! We stopped nursing overnight, but still had a sesh at 4:30am, then 5am, then 5:30am ...(You get the picture:) until I got sick of it and either gave him the iPhone or got out of bed myself!!
* and then come May, and we finally stopped that morning nursing session too, after we came back from GW holidays. Weird (bittersweet) to think my boobies are done, packed away for good now.
* L started day-care. He cried for the first 5 days when dropped off (had to come home the first day before lunch he was inconsolable) but by day 6 he goes off without any tears, and seems to enjoy playing with the other kids, and even gave his teacher a big kiss when leaving yesterday.
* and me? Well, I got a job. Yep, a real job. In-house translating. Is it weird that I love hearing the click click of my high heels as I walk? Lol.

Yep, lots of changes and still trying to work out our daily rhythm, but to tell you the truth, it was easier to make the change than I thought - For all the worry about is it the right decision to go back to work, put L into daycare etc etc, it all seems to be working out. I guess Nike does give right advice - "just do it!"

82

I get a mention on gaijin wife's blog (http://gaijinwife.wordpress.com/) And I get 82 hits here today!! That's enough to get anyone back blogging:) lol.

Some days I should just stay out of the kitchen

today I

* made my favorite almond cookies, was hoping to shape them into hina-sama shapes. K and L helped cut out pig shapes, hearts and flowers and I made just two (prince and princess) Hina samas. So glad I didn't waste my time shaping them -- all the biscuits Mergd together to form one big flat mess on the trays in the oven ;( not sure what went wrong, as it was kinda my fail-safe recipe....not anymore,right??,

* made mini quiche (since had the oven going anyway making failed biscuits) with broccoli and tuna, in wanton wrappers for cases. shouldn't have strayed from my normal quiche fillings.....K didn't like it, as I expected;( And the quiches all stuck in the muffin tray and came out looking like a big mess.

So it was a kinda epic fail day in the kitchen.

In other random news:

**Cleaned the kids room, living room, kitchen only to have them messed up even more than when we started about 5 mins later:( sigh. But I guess that is a daily thing, right? )

**Got halfway through the mountain of clothes waiting to be folded and put away. was gonnna do the rest once the kids were asleep, but after an EPIC three hour nap from BOTH kids, bedtime was pushed back til close to 9pm... So I am now sitting under the kotatsu watching dead boring Japanese tv instead of folding.

**I've gone caffeine free! Decided last week to try it - was drinking cups of tea all day long, and the cookies that go with the drink of tea got out of hand, so that my clothes are now all too tight - a problem in winter, unless I can find some potato sacks;(
am actually feeling a bit better without the caffeine/all-day-long drinking, and enjoying my camomile, rosehip and decaf teas. I have drunk coke, and eaten chocolate though, so not fully de-caffeinated yet, but it is a process, right?!
actually, it IS a process, as I am hoping to go sugar-free -- starting March, I am gonna attempt my no junk food/chocolate diet, and try to cut out sugars from my diet. I think this will be challenging. But hoping that I can do it!

**and I haven't forgotten my 101 things....although I think I still have about, uh, 101 things to complete. (sigh) if only the kotatsu wasn't so cozy...........

Honey, honey

As if a full day of headaches, cramps and listlessness was not enough...I am now having an allergic reaction to porridge!
Ok, it was actually the manuka honey (bloody kiwis!!) that I mixed in with it.
Am having a cup of tea trying to calm down and breath through it.
I have had this once before, after drinking an energy drink that had royal jelly in it. While in Korea, on holidays with my parents. I couldn't stand up, and it took a couple of hours to get over it. It was really bad.
This time seems mild- my heart is not racing as fast as a horse in the Melbourne cup anymore, so it looks like I'll get through it ;)
And i wont be touching the $15-a-jar manuka honey again - all the more for J, I guess.