Saturday, June 13, 2009

if you have 45 minutes to spare...

I would like to recommend for your viewing pleasure Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog.

Start here.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Star Trek

Chikara and I have been wanting to go and watch Star Trek ever since we heard about it. I watched Star Trek and Star Trek: TNG when I was younger. I wouldn't call myself a Trekkie, but I enjoyed the shows and know most of the character's names. Chikara has also watched enough to be interested in seeing the movie.

Problem: I have never been able to get a babysitter. You know, a teenager who will come and watch your kids so you can go out with your husband and then you pay them. I've never seen it done here in Japan. Usually what we do is trade babysitting with our friends but they're all going through various difficult things right now so we didn't want to ask them. Our only option left was to ask Chikara's parents. This isn't necessarily a horrible option but they are busy on Sundays and Chikara's mom can get tired easily because of her kidney problems so this is usually a last option. But Chikara called his mom and she could come so we were really excited.

We bought our tickets online and I put the kids to bed while Chikara picked up his mom. I showed his mom where all the good snacks are and off we went.

The movie was awesome. We talked about it all the way home.

When we arrived home, I went into the living room and no one was there. We had seen Dad's car down the street so we knew both of them were at our house. I called out hello and mom came tiptoeing down the stairs. I turns out that Natsuki had called for me about 10 minutes after we left for the movie and when my MIL went in to see what she wanted, Natsuki freaked out. They tried everything to calm her down. They let her watch videos, gave her popsicles and juice, moved Misaki into another bed so Natsuki could be with Emi (her "other" mommy) but nothing had worked until about 10 minutes before we got home and she finally went to sleep. It was 11:30 at night and Emi was still awake, sitting beside Natsuki who was a knot of sweat and blankets.

I sighed and then moved everybody back to their own beds and laid beside Natsuki until she was asleep. It took only 10 minutes to put everything back the way it should be.

After the high of watching the best movie we've seen in awhile, coming home to the chaos brought us back to reality real fast. I can't decide if we should feel bad for my MIL or not. We rarely ask her to do this for us and she is their grandmother but basically she spent two and a half hours trying to figure out what to do for a crying and screaming Natsuki.

Next time we'll just ask our friends to watch the girls.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

recent pics


April 2009




Emi's 8th Birthday




Misaki's 7th Birthday




Sakura's Preschool Entrance Ceremony




Natsuki being cute at home!

Emi

A conversation with Emi:


Emi: Can I help you with dinner?

Me: Not right now, I'm trying to get this done quickly.

Emi: Please, can I help you?

Me: Thanks for offering but not today, OK?

Emi: Please?

Me: No.

Emi: (exasperated) But, Mommy, I was *born* to help!!!


later that evening...


Me: Emi, can you get a diaper for me from the closet.

Emi: No.

Me: I thought you were "born to help"?

Emi: ... I'll get it.