Sunday, July 27, 2008

Hot Hot Hot




It is so stinkin hot and humid here! How did people survive without AC? I always thought Japan was more like Seattle in terms of climate. Boy was I wrong! It's like we never left DC. It rains buckets too. Mark's coworker invited us out to go swimming with them Sat morning. I though it would still be too cool to go swimming. Wrong again. At 11am, you want to be in the pool! Everything on base is family friendly. There's 3 pools of different depths, and one is just 4-6 inches deep! perfect for the kiddies. And they have tons of pool toys too. Just no inflatable things are allowed.

Life on base is slow I think. Things close early and on odd days. Don't bother getting anything done around 1100-1300, its lunch time. At the pool, the last 10 mins (and they are to the dot on this) of every hour the life guards take a break and everyone gets out of the pool. And Mon and Tues they're closed for cleaning. The commissary (grocery store) where we live is open 0900 -1900 everyday except Mon. The commissary at the other base where we get our mail is closed Wed. I'm defiantly not used to a grocery store closing at 7pm. Different offices closes at different hours... I can't keep it all straight in my head. And I'm not used to using 24 hour time either. So I say its slow cause things aren't open when I need them to be.

Our camcorder called it quits the other day. Sad, cause it wasn't that old and it fit our needs. Back in DC, Mark accidentally stepped on it, and we thought it was just a cosmetic thing. The LCD screen was just a little kinked and just needed a little extra push to get it closed. Well, turns out that the touch screen doesn't work anymore. We can still record on it, but there's no way to make it do anything else cause all the buttons are accessed from the screen... I guess Sony made that decision for the sake of clean design. argh. I hate when expensive investments die. Why does Mark have to have big feet?

About the kids...Careese, we can't get enough of her. I think God made babies and little kids cute in their parents eyes so they are hardwired to love and protect their young. And I think we were over wired for Careese. Something about having a little girl makes it different from having a boy too. Those of you with little girls know what we're talking about. Careese's new thing is discovery of her voice box. She screams at such high decibels I'm sure there are times when Lucy our dog is in pain. The funniest is Careese's new thing where she'll growl at us and at her food right before eating it. Lucy doesn't do it, so this is all Careese's. We tried but couldn't get a good video of her growling at her pieces of french toast in her little fists then shoving it in her mouth.

Evan is growing leaps and bounds vocabulary-wise. We signed him up for preschool at a local Japanese preschool, hoping he will learn Japanese. I think he's bored at home now. I don't have enough time and energy to really challenge his mind. And he actually asks to go to school. I'm a little worried that he'll fall behind in English once he goes to Japanese preschool. He'll learn to read and write in Japanese, so I'm going to have to keep him up with his English alphabet and reading at home. I don't want him to struggle when we move back to the states.
A funny thing he says is "Mommy, my tummy is empty, I need to put food in it so I can grow big, like daddy." He comprehends a lot more than we give him credit. A while ago, I gave him two empty plastic bottles to use as bowling pins. And the other day Mark and I had bought drinks and were drinking them in the car. Evan yells from his carseat, what I expected to be him asking for a sip too, "Oh yeay! You finish those drinks and I have 2 more bowling pins! And then I have 4 pins!" Holy cow, he's already doing math?! I was amazed that he understands action and consequence too.
I feel a little unprepared for raising a 3 yr old. Babies and toddler's needs are simple and it doesn't take much to challenge their little minds. But with Evan, I feel like I don't know enough about what goes on in his mind anymore. Stop growing up so fast, Evan!
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6 comments:

Super Dave said...

I laughed at the 'big feet' jab. I cracked the side of our camcorder because I was trying to 'fix' it. Everything functions normally, but I should probably seal it with something that will bond with the plastic.

123 checkoutourfamily said...

Bev,
Wow, sounds like things are pretty different in Japan...especially on a base. My brother-in-law is stationed at an air force base in San Antonio and we visited. i know what you're talking about. It's way different.

Your kids are growing up so fast. We're hoping for a girl but I have to wait a whole week before we find out. :)

Beverly said...

althought its tacky (no pun intended) duct tape would work! ;)
i used to work at a sign shop at byu and we had this great sticky
vinyl that came in brushed sliver and all kinds of colors that's
waterproof and had a good bond to anything. if you could get your
hands on some of that it would be perfect. you can even have a logo
printed on it too. maybe theres a FastSigns near you?

TC said...

Hey...buy hooked on phonics from amazon.com or something. It'd teach him how to read. He's the perfect age fo rthe beginners version (there's that and then master reader...which he can do right after)...he'll love it! Plus you can use it for all your kids! Still sad I didn't get to see ya before you left...boo hoo!

Bekah said...

It is true, as they get older you can't just give them a few challenges a day. I'm putting Evan in preschool this fall for the same reason.

Allison does th growling thing too. It's all new to me, but she loves to growl!

the Dao's said...

Your post put a smile on my face. Kids are too cute not to have.
Have you heard of "Signing Time" ? (SLC based company) Samantha learned of her alphabets and many signs by age 2, thanks to the DVDs.