Weekends and my Mini Photographer

Our past couple of weekends have been kind of exciting. First off was the Genworth 10/4 Miler with the Amazing Kids Race. This was the last weekend in September. Emma loves to run, so we signed her up for the 1/4 miler for kids 0-5. Before the race there was bubbles, face painting, and karate demonstrations. Emma went straight for the bubbles. These weren't ordinary bubbles. They had two kids swimming pools set up, full of suds. In each one was a little stool and a hula hoop. The kids stood on the stool and a volunteer pulled the hula-hoop up around them so they were inside the bubble. Emma loved it. She kept trying to touch it as they pulled the bubble over her, though. 

Anyway, one parent was allowed to run with each child, if they wanted. Since this was Emma first race, we decided that I would run with her. I really thought that I would chase her across the track because that's what happens whenever we go outside. She says "Catch Me!" and takes off. The crowd probably threw her off a bit. So we held hands the entire time.

She wanted to stop about halfway through. But then the cheerleaders started putting their hands out for high-fives and that got her going for the rest of the race. (I don't know her time, I can never see the clock at the starting line. Sorry, Grandpa.)

On Saturday, I ran the 4-miler. Well, walked really. I did try to run parts of it. The uphill parts. Crazy I know but sometimes it is easier to run it then to walk it. I did the 4-miler last year too. My time didn't improve, however I did not hurt as much this year. Not being 5 months pregnant with a baby swashing my hip joints probably had a lot to do with that.

For the first weekend in October, we went out to Yoder Farm. This is becoming a tradition with us. They have a corn maze, goats, a play area with rubber duck races, a corn pit with bouncy balls, tricycles, and pumpkins and apples. So, the tradition is to go through the corn maze and get some apples for canning, stopping to play with the toys and the goats along the way, of course.

Emma is a big fan of the rubber duck races. She was not a fan of the corn maze. Last year she ran through it, getting ahead of us and making me worry that she might actually get lost. This year she stopped dead the the entrance and had to be persuaded to go in. She did not like the corn and did not want to touch it at all.

Kaylee didn't have a problem with it. She was asleep for most of the farm experience though. Which was fine. It was her nap time anyway.


This should really be second blog post, but sometimes its just easier to load all the pictures at once and type around them.

Its hard to take pictures around Emma because she will insist that its her turn to have the camera. We can always tell when she's had it because we get pictures like this:

And this:

She got a hold of the camera recently while we were hanging out with Kaylee. She surprised us with these:

As you might be able to tell, Kaylee is pretty fascinated with the camera too.

Emma Highlights

Our little wiggle-worm is will be 12 months and 3 weeks old on Sunday. Its high time for an update, don't you think?

Likes:
• eating with her fingers, even if its not a finger food, like soup and pudding,
• animals, especially the neighbor's dog,
• music,
• "reading", she will open her books, flip through the pages and babble to herself.

Dislikes:
• the vacuum -- its big, makes a loud noise, and she once tipped it over onto herself,
• Daddy leaving the house without her,
• going to bed.

Shoes

Does anyone else remember when they could take their laced-up shoes on and off without undoing the laces? I know I did that when I was a child, and it would annoy my mother. I'm not sure when I stopped doing this, but the ability has apparently left me, and I would love to have it back.

One of the most well known traditions in Japan is the taking off of shoes whenever you enter a building. Thankfully, this is not done everywhere - many businesses don't ask you to do this - but it something you do when you visit someone's house or enter a school. There are some places in the hospital where you cannot wear shoes and some places where you can.

My casual, outdoor shoes are a pair of sneakers, with laces. I can still see my feet, but bending over to tie up my shoes is not an easy thing. As most pregnant women will tell you, bending over to get/do anything off the ground becomes a task of epic proportions. Which is why I wish I could still take my shoes on and off without undoing the laces.

On the ground

Well, here I am at almost 36 weeks; just over 32 days to go until my due date. If I'm anything like the rest of the women in my family, I'll be early though.

All in all, I'd say this has been a pretty easy pregnancy. I haven't had any morning sickness and only some lightheaded-ness and occasional swelling in my feet. Most people haven't even noticed that I am pregnant, until now. Now I'm getting people patting my belly, asking if I'm tired and need to rest, and giving me extra pillows to sit on. Its all very strange, especially the pats on my belly.

The only major difficulty I'm having is getting up and down out of our couch. Japanese furniture is all very low to the ground. The couch is probably 8 inches off the floor, and I either fall into it or kneel down on the floor and roll myself up into it. I feel huge and awkward and ungainly whenever I do this. If we had carpet, I probably would probably just stay on the floor.

Let the selling begin

Since the new year Mark and I have been discussing and planning how we're going to get to Japan. We have a lot of stuff to do and organize. Our contract has been signed and sent in, along with documents to start our visa processing.



We recently decided to try to sell our condo instead of just renting it. Renting it hasn't been taken off the table, but we both agreed that we do not want to come back to Texas, and keeping the condo will make that possibility more likely. So we're going to sell as much as can, including the cars and our home.



With that idea in mind, we started talking to Real Estate Agents. Oh. My. Gosh. We have so much to do. Not only do we have to de-clutter, which we are already in the process of doing, we have to move furniture around and re-decorate and re-paint our walls and clean. And not just minor cleaning, but super-duper, deep down, power cleaning. Everything has to sparkle, especially the bathrooms and kitchen. And it has to stay that way for weeks, so that whenever a potential buyer comes around, its ready.

So with all that in mind, we're thinking of having a cleaning/packing party. You come over to help us pack and clean; we'll provide some pizza and drinks, and as a bonus, you get to take a knickknack, or a book, or some other memento of us with you. How's that for a deal?

The Week Ahead

I've been staring at this screen for an hour trying to think of something positive to say. Last week was long and hard. Coming back from the holidays with a 6 day work week is never easy and by Thursday I was a mess. I'm hoping this week will not be so bad.



Some of the things I'm looking forward to this week are:

• a new RPG campaign that I am not GMing. Mark has got me into table-top role-playing games and I tried my hand at being the Game Master for a couple of months. But that campaign is now over and someone else in our group is running the next one. I'm looking forward to just being a player again and not worrying about plot lines and monster statistics.
• The next childbirth class. Mark and I signed up for a childbirth class designed for first time parents. We're learning more about anatomy and medical terminology and it is such a relief to get this information in English instead of Japanese. Although Mark is working on translating a lot of the terminology into Japanese so we can communicate better the doctors there.
• Picking out new title for the kitchen. I redid the kitchen floor with stick-on tiles a couple of years ago, but I didn't get them under the over, dishwasher or refrigerator. I just had no way of moving them. So the tiles have slowly been separating and sliding under the appliances. But we're going to re-tile the floor on MLK day and are looking at patterns this week.
• This could be the highlight of the week. I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday and we may be able to find out the sex of the baby. I think its a boy. Mark thinks it'll be a girl, but mostly just to contrary. We could find out who's right.

Sleeplessness

All week I've been waking up in the middle of night, with no idea why. I think this was all in preparation for what I experienced last night -- a 4 AM FIRE ALARM!

Don't panic, there was no fire. The alarms simply went off, and off, and off. Even though the fire department is only 2 minutes away, it took them over 20 to show up. Apparently the company that monitors our alarm system did not notify the fire department when the alarm went off. They didn't have a clue that anything was happening until a neighbor called them. Good thing it wasn't a real fire, eh?

After about an hour of standing around outside, talking to my neighbors, the firemen, and the police, the alarms finally got turned off and we all got to go back to bed. But my mind wasn't ready to forget about the false alarm. I dreamed I was still outside, waiting. But it was okay because David Tennant was there to entertain me.