Cherry Blossom Adventures

I have a lot going on right now and am feeling more than a little overwhelmed.

Going to take a mini blogging break. I still have Noah`s 7 month letter to post and I might get to that this week but don`t expect any posts for a couple of weeks.

Enjoy your summer.

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Does anyone else have trouble coming up with titles for their blog posts? Unless it is about something in particular I have no idea. Hot seems like a good one though since it is pretty damn hot although on the good side if I get my washing out by 7:30am it is dry by 9am!!

I worked on Saturday for 2 hours and then had a meeting about another job in my area which will be 2 hours a month. Plus I had my mummy class yesterday and have work again tomorrow in Nishi-Tokyo. Some of the work I do requires prep but usually it is minimal and takes me less than an hour the night before. Sometimes it is just printing some stuff out, other times I write up my lesson plans for my own aid. I worked out that this month I had just 7 hours of work but next month I will have more. It is reasonably easy to juggle with Noah since I can do the prep when he is asleep at night and it is not like I need to work on it everyday. The extra income is nice and I am trying to save as much as I can of it to use on the trip in Australia. SHOPPING! WOO!

This weekend though I have no work BUT we are going camping. It is not real camping since we will be staying in cabins but it is a bit of a road trip to Gunma where we will meet 14-15 others. I forget the name of the place but it is actually an adventure camp so there is white water rafting and paragliding. We will arrive in the afternoon so Shun will join in the paragliding. That should be interesting since he is deathly afraid of heights but when I asked if he wanted to do it he said yes so, we will see. He can`t even handle looking over our balcony and we are only on the 7th floor (and his feet are on solid ground!). Will be interesting to see how Noah goes. He has slept away from home before but I a not sure if the other will appreciate his possible 5am or 5:30am wake up call (plus once before that for some milk probably!)

I have been a bit under the weather recently and with the heat it has been easier to stay inside most of the time. We have had mid 30 degree weather all week and Noah is like me and does not handle the heat well. We did venture out on Tuesday to go to the doctor`s (Noah`s runny nose and eczema) and run some other errands- bank, conbini to pay bills, pharmacy, supermarket, shiyakusho (city hall), other shopping and then home. I was ready for a nap after that though after been out in the heat!

Noah is FINALLY eating more solids (although no cutting down on breastfeeds yet) and actually enjoying eating more. He actually opens his mouth for almost all of his food and enjoys trying to feed himself. We have started 3 meals a day from yesterday. I am trying, yet again, to get him to drink from a bottle but he won`t have a bar of it. I am losing hope of having him EVER take a bottle but any hints or tricks are appreciated. Shun gave it ago on the weekend but he screamed a lot then too and of course is even less interested when I try.

His sleep though- well he goes down at about 7:00pm or 7:30pm (I can not stretch this any longer because he usually wakes up from his last nap about 3:30 if he only has 3 naps) but is up between 5-6am. SO EARLY! (up 2-3 times a night for 1-2 feeds) Luckily Shun (although not readily) takes him one morning til 7:00 or 7:30am then I take him the next. Shun is not so good at STAYING awake to watch him though and at the moment he doesn`t move much so this is fine but in a month or so I am not sure this will be viable. I hope Noah learns to hit daddy and pull his hair soon the same way he does me when I play with him on the floor. hehe. 3 naps of 30-45 minutes a day. Such short naps He has always been a cat napper though- once a week or twice a week he will nap more than an hour…

It is less than 4 months til I head to Australia! EXCITED! And yes, I am already counting down!!!! Although the idea of 2 summers in one year is not exactly thrilling (especially since I had 2 last year as well!)

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My friend Nicole was staying with us for a couple of days before she headed back to Australia (after 2 years in London). We have been friends since high school but she actually lived in Japan for a year in 2004 so it was her second time.

Noah of course loved the extra attention.

Nic said good bye to her fiance in England and they are trying to work out some visa stuff before he joins her in Australia (he is Colombian) so leaving England was bitter sweet for her. While she is excited to be heading back to Australia I think she is nervous all the same. Anyway, I wish her the best of luck and am looking forward to catching up again in November and December.

Yesterday we went to look at 5 properties in our house/land hunt. Two were blocks of land, one was a block of land with an old house on it (that will be torn down) and two were new houses built in the last couple of months. It definitely made us realize what size things were. I originally was thinking land of about 35 Tsubo but my MIL kept telling me she thought that would be too small and to only look at places 40 tsubo or bigger. I am glad she did- we looked at one block that was 37 tsubo and it just seemed so tiny and I couldn`t imagine a house even fitting on there but that said there are plenty of properties bought on land even SMALLER than that here. My MIL has been great- she went to the bank for us to get some estimates on loans, and sussed out some places for us to look on Sunday. My FIL watched Noah for the 2 hours it took us to look around. It was just our first weekend of looking (and now the next two weekends are busy with camping and then with Benay and her family staying and Sakura`s birthday party) but one was a possibility (the one with the old house on it currently) although we are not in any hurry and will look again in a couple of weeks. Nice to know what is out there though, what the prices range from and also what some new houses looked like on the inside.

Some other recent snaps:

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Am late getting this posted. Whenever Noah goes down for a nap I think “I should blog” or once he is asleep at night but I just don`t. I guess my blogging mojo has gone down hill a little bit recently…

Update 101 things is 1001 days for June 2010

33. Maintain the weight loss for at least six months  (abandoned June 2009 due to pregnancy, to restart after birth. Managed 4 months before getting pregnant and started again Jan 2010) 6/6.
DONE! Since losing my pregnancy weight by the time Noah was a month old and actually losing a further couple of kilos I came out 3kg less than my pre-pregnancy weight AND means that since I started the 1001 days challenge I lost 10kg, put on 12kg, lost 15kg! That is a lot of yo-yo weight loss/gain in a short amount of time but hopefully I can maintain it now for awhile!

50. Learn how to use photoshop.

This has been a long time coming, and to be honest I can`t see myself using the program much but I know my way around (slightly!) and can do some touch ups if I want. I found it all very time consuming though and I would rather just take photos and upload as is unless I was making something special as a gift or something. But that is just me! It is an amazing program though and the things you can do with it (of which I only know a small amount) is incredible.

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Books read in June

I am still working on “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” – This is without a doubt the longest it has taken me to read a novel before. I guess I just haven`t really gotten into it. I like it enough but all the Swedish names make it confusing and I think after caring for Noah all day my brain is just mush and makes it a bit hard to follow sometimes. Once I am done, while I own the next two in the series, I will probably hold off on reading them until I go to Australia later in the year. I am looking forward to reading a different novel but definitely something that doesn`t require me to concentrate so much (How bad does that sound. Honestly though, I think other mums out there probably understand at least those with under 3s)

Reading Magic- Mem Fox (more on this later)

Top 100 Baby Purees- Annabel Karmel

Oh and in June I probably read over 30 different pictures books (some more than 2 or 3 times!).

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Mem Fox is an author of Australian children`s books and also works on children`s literacy. I recently picked up her book “Reading Magic” which focuses on reading aloud to your children from birth or a young age and the impact it will have on their ability to read later on. I have read to Noah almost everyday since he was born- I usually have a little book in my bag in case we get bored on a train or while out, I read before bath time and at other times of the day and on the weekends I encourage Shun to read Japanese picture books to Noah and I always take books to my in-laws house so that they can read to Noah too (in Japanese)

Noah is not even 7 months old and has approximately 100 picture books in English (and only about 10 in Japanese), We haven`t read all the books we own but have read most of them. Some of the golden books I have though are a bit long so I am leaving them for when he is older.

I love to read. I have always loved to read and apparently I taught myself to read before I even went to kindy. How? Well my parents read to me everyday and I guess that helped.

Reading through Mem`s book I began to realize why I was able to teach myself to read really young. All the things she encouraged parents/teachers etc to do are things my parents did with me and a lot of the case studies in her books were of children reading younger than usual or those that struggled with reading were ONLY trying to learn from a phonics base focus instead of concentrating on the whole words and stories (which you do when reading aloud to children)

Anyway I found the book fantastic. Noah only has 3 of Mem Fox`s children`s books but I will definitely try to pick up some others when we are back in Australia.

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Noah`s napping has turned to crap. He still naps but a couple of weeks ago when his schedule changes (yet again!) and he started waking up  for the day around 6am every morning I would feed him at 6am, do his breakfast about 8am, feed him again at 9am and he would get drowsy or fall asleep while feeding and I would put him down for a nap and he would sleep for about an hour and then at 12 or so when I would feed him again he would fall asleep again.

This meant that he was no longer putting HIMSELF to sleep in his cot because he was pretty much asleep when I put him in the cot. The problem with this is that I spent so much time ensuring he was able to put himself to sleep previously that I knew if I didn`t break him of the habit we would be in trouble and he would start needing me to fall asleep.

When we were out and about he would still just sleep when he was ready in his pram or ergo- not necessarily after feeds but over the weekend and today I have tried to switch it up so that he naps without feeding first (He is not hungry or anything- he would usually have had a feed within 1hr30 mins) and it has been a nightmare.

A good 45 minutes each time of him screaming when I put him in the cot. I would pat him for a bit and he would settle but he would whimper for awhile and then start screaming again. It is not like me hoding him helps as he just gets frustrated. His first 2 naps today he has while we were out at the embassy. Both were very short though- only 25 minutes or so each so he was still pretty tired so I ave just managed to settle him again for another nap. I put him in the cot at 12:30pm and he FINALLY fell asleep at 1:20pm although he was exhausted. He would self settle for a bit but then scream again so I was in and out of his room non-stop.

Any advice? I don`t want him to be reliant on breastfeeding for sleep but I am happy to pat him until he settles or continue to go into his room to let him know I am close by.  Previously though I would just put him in his cot and he would play a bit and then fall asleep. At night he would often be asleep after his bath and feed before I put him down but if he was still awake I would put him in his cot anyway and he would chat” for a it then fall asleep by himself. I very rarely had to go back into his room once I had put him in the cot.

I think part of it might also be separation anxiety setting in because now if he is playing in the living room and I get up to go to the kitchen or soomething he will often turn on the water works.

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I have piles of photos piling up and lots to write about but as more and more things happen and more and more photos accumulate it just gets even more overwhelming.

So a bit of an update. Finally.

But first, thank you to everyone who commented on my last post about house hunting. We went to look at some model houses last weekend. The kitchens in those places always make me so excited to have our own place- actual bench space, a real pantry, a dish washer and more. OH MY! We have not made any firm decisions or anything but we might end up buying land and building our own place… There is some land (2 different lots) available in Moto Yawata near Shun`s parents house (A 5 minute walk and a 15 or 20 minute walk- but by bike both are super close) which sound great. MIL is going to check them out for me and see if it is worth going to look at them. With Noah, it is hard to go look at everywhere we want to see and we have discussed with MIL the sorts of things we are looking for and don`t want. She is also a pretty good negotiator so nice to have someone like that on our side. Living in Moto Yawata would be ideal but we thought it would end up too expensive for us but maybe not…

So, Noah is crawling. But only backwards. He scoots around in circles forwards but when he is actually on all fours he only goes backwards. It is so cute because he is trying to move forward to get stuff but only can go backwards. Is it cruel that I put toys in front of him, just out of reach just so I can watch him crawl backwards and laugh? It is so cute though and I do encourage him and after a couple minutes put the toys within reach.

We might be over our recent sleep regression too. He woke up only once last night between 7:30pm and 6:00am (He woke up and fed at 4:00am)- I hope he is over it. It sure will make me a happier camper!!!

Noah also met his first cousin Rina chan

Chiba Peanuts Multicutural Playgroup met almost a month ago and we had lots of fun.

Father`s Day went well. Noah only tried to eat the present a couple of times. We went to Yakiniku (Shun`s favourite) and spent the day together. Shun`s friend Ishi joined us (he was over the night before to watch the soccer…and he just kind of stuck around. Not that I mind he is lovely to have around. Last time he stayed he vacuumed when he saw I was going to do it. What is not to love about a guy that vacuums?)

Noah still loves to read-

And chew on stuff

Just a final photo I took last night because I love his expression

We found out last week that it seems Noah has an allergy to dairy. The second time he ate yogurt he got very itchy and a bit blotchy and the third time he broke out in hives on one side of his face, ear and neck. It was the day after his final DPT immunization so when I rang the clinic they told me to bring him in as soon as possible in case it was a reaction to this. It seems though that the most likely cause is dairy or cow`s milk protein and we will hold off on giving any more diary now til he is tested at about age one. The doctor said to start him on tofu to see if we had any issues there and he had it for the third time this morning (mixed with banana this morning) and luckily no reaction so it looks as if soy products might be okay which is a relief because if he still has dairy issues after age one (a lot of children grow out of it) then he can at least drink soy milk, continue to eat tofu and have soy yogurt maybe (although I can`t seem to find soy yogurt in Japan?).

I have been very diligent about monitoring him for allergies since starting him on solid foods and so far dairy seems to be the only issues but the doctor advised to hold off on wheat til 9 months or so and of course stay away from the other high risk allergy foods like strawberries, tomatoes, seasame, nuts etc for as long as possible.

A lot of children with dairy allergies or cows milk protein allergy have reactions and issues before they even start on solid food (like blood or mucus in poo, lots of belly pain, or blood in spit up) but Noah had none of that so it seems his allergy might be mild. I am concerned that the dairy he receives through my breastmilk though might not be helping his eczema at all but when I tried to talk to the doctor about this he said it wasn`t an issue. I am still thinking I might eliminate dairy for a couple of weeks to see what happens though. I did eliminate for a week when his eczema first appeared but it seem to make no difference so I went back to eating dairy but now that I know he appears to have an allergy I should do it again. It might mean the end of ice coffees and chocolate for awhile. Not to mention cheese!

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