Japanese Yochien Lunch

At the beginning of the school year, Ai Sensei asked us at the bus stop if Claire would like to start having Japanese lunch on Mondays and Wednesdays and a sandwich and milk on Fridays. I said yes, but I wanted to hear how she liked it after the first week and then again the next week, to make sure she liked it.


Sensei told me that she eats very well and I ask Claire and she tells me she likes it. One day she came home and told me, "MOMMY! GUESS WHAT?!?! There was a FISH in my lunch today!" (It was quite funny to Claire!) But she didn't seem to mind and I continue to ask her every Monday and Wednesday and she says she likes her lunch.

So spring forward to this month when I notice the menu in her handouts in her backpack

Which, of course, I can't read.  And the highlighted part cracks me up because I'm pretty sure that was just on my handout...I hadn't been sending in a fork, a spoon or a cup. :)  WHOOPS!  Gaijin!!!

So I asked Mick to take it to his Saint of a secretary, Miss Nika-san and she translated it for us (producing this awesome document...the Japanese do not do anything halfway).

I ask Claire every day and says she likes her meal and then I ask her if there was fish in her meal and she usually says no...but she's mistaken, as you can see! ☺

The sandwiches are beautiful. I saw them when I took cookies in for Claire's birthday. They are cut on the diagonal and one half was ham and cheese and the other half was a ham salad. The lunches really kick the stuffing out of the pepperoni and pickles or jelly sandwiches that I send in for her. No wonder she likes it so much! :)  I really need to go in there on a Monday or Wednesday to see the Japanese lunch.

Claire Bear will be the most Japanese of us

when we leave here, that's for sure!

Speech, experience and now expanded taste buds!

Claire's Entrance Ceremony at Yochien - April 2011

The Japanese school year begins in April, not August or September, and goes through most of the summer, taking August off. The opening ceremony is a BIG deal and the Japanese knew this and dressed to the nines for it. It was funny to see the Americans (save our friend Charlie, married to the fabulous Harumi, who was in his Sunday best) in regular clothes! Gaijins!!!!

First we gathered in the playground area for a few songs.

I like this picture because you can pick out the American in the background! :) (Next year we'll know to dress up!)

Then we went inside their classroom where they took roll

Patiently waiting her turn!

Hi Mommy!!!

Here she is raising her hand and answering "Hai!" which is "Yes" in Japanese when her name, "Claire-chan" is called!

She can recognize her name in Hiragana!

We ended the opening ceremony morning with a class picture with the Moms. Gigi wouldn't let me put her down, so she's in it too!

I'm so proud of our Claire Bear!

It's Going to be a Great Year!

Gigi Loves Justin

Olivia and Claire each got a Justin Bieber (Barbie) doll for Christmas. You push his belly button and he sings one of his songs. Gigi L-O-V-E-S the ♪♫ Baby ♪♫ song and plays with him all of the time. I didn't have the video camera, but clicked away and I think the photos are kind of like a flip book of old! :)

We should really put his clothes back on! ;-)

Why we have decided to not allow paint in the house anymore

In her teeth and on her tongue....

and on the back of her neck. Almost like she had help. Hmmmm....Claire was up there. Coincidence?

Very Proud of Audrey!

Don't you love catching your kids doing something great?

There's a lot of calling kids back to turn the lights off, hang up the towel, get your elbows off the table, do your homework, do your homework, have you done your homework yet, for the thousandeth time, put the salad forks in the salad fork place in the silverware drawer! Detail is important! Learn to do things correctly the first time so you don't have to do it twice.

Oh dear. You see how my days usually go now, don't you?  Parenting. Not for the faint at heart, indeed,

But today I sat down at the computer and Audrey was logged into her Facebook. It was on a mutual friend of ours page, so I thought I was logged into mine and I clicked on the "Notifcation" tab and saw that "Meru Chey commented on her wall post" as well as "Meru Chey accepted your friend request."

I leave her Facebook page and move to the next tab on Internet Explorer and it's a "Google Translate" page.

On the left (English) side it says

Hi Meru I'm so happy you got a Facebook

and on the right (Japanese) side it says

こんにちはメルー私はあなたがFacebookを持ってうれしい

There have been several new children in Audrey's class the past month or so and mostly they are Japanese. Generally, a service member has married a Japanese woman and then his (now) stepchildren come into our school and don't speak much English.

I am soooooooooooooo proud of Audrey for reaching out to these kids and not only forming a friendship, but going that extra step in making them feel valued by trying to speak to them in their native language, while they are working hard at learning English! 

Thursday I biked out with Audrey to her Kumon (Japanese) lesson and I peeked around the corner at the end and took several pictures in my mind of her smiling and interacting with the Sensei and trying so hard with the testing portion of the lesson.

She has really embraced living here in Japan and I'm so proud of her!!!

Must get back to the mundane Mothering (as opposed to bragging Mothering) now....but it's ALL WORTH IT!!!

Barbie Party Goody Bags

Etsy is my favorite place on the internet. And as a connoisseur of internet shopping...that's saying quite a lot!

Claire is having a Barbie birthday party when Grandma and Grandpa are here. And it is going to be quite a soiree!!!

We're having it in the same, delightful (and free) room on base where we had Gigi's party. So the entertainment is mostly taken care of, just by the children running around and entertaining themselves. So my shopping was mostly for the goody bags. :)  We will start the party with a little coloring.

Obviously saying "Claire is Four!" :)

And they'll need crayons too.

I also got some in Curious George fabric for the poor little boys who will come to the party.  Poor little guys.

I found an absolutely delightful Grandma who sells Barbie dresses at the shop Poppyfrocks and ordered this dress



for Claire's Barbie to wear to the party

 and another dress for Olivia's Barbie to wear. Well, when Carol of Poppyfrocks found out I had four daughters and noticed we had a military overseas address....she told me she was throwing in another dress for free....so of course I had to buy another one. :) So all four of my girls have a new dress for their Barbies to wear to the party. (I know Audrey will be so.excited!)

At another Etsy shop I found some party hats for the Barbies to wear



And of course I had to buy the bunting! (Duh!)



and still another Etsy shop had cupcakes for the Barbies to eat!

I got vanilla cupcakes too in case there are Barbies who don't like chocolate.

Cutest!!!

And of course some paper party favors

Although I admit that I may have jumped the shark on the water bottle labels (not shown).

I received the Barbie dresses lickety split and they were each in their own cutest little bag and I thought to myself...MUST.HAVE.MORE DRESSES.  So I wrote Carol, she went shopping for special fabric that day and about a day later, had these whipped up for all of the little girls who are coming to the party.




I'm so excited about these I can hardly stand myself!!!!!

 

So, I'm all done buying (Mick says, "It's 'bout time.") and now will just wait with baited breath by the Post Office for all the treasures to come in!

As you can see, it's not much fun

having four little girls! :-0

Finished

Definition of FINISHED

transitive verb



1 : to bring to an end : terminate
2 : to bring to completion or issue



Definition of FINISHED
adjective


marked by the highest quality : consummate

As of June 1st we are finished paying off Mick's Law School loans. Hooray!!!  I must say that while I won't miss that loan payment, I never begrudged those loans. Mick always wanted to be a lawyer. He said he came from a family of farmers and lawyers and that he wasn't smart enough to be a farmer.  ☺  He loves his career and is great at it. So I like the adjective's definition better than the verb.
 
As in...Yes, we have brought the loan paying to an end. But the result is a career that is marked by the highest quality! 
 
Not coincidentally, we set up an automatic charitable payment to Creighton Law School that begins this month. It won't be the size of the loan payment (Sorry! Real estate crisis = An overload of debt that makes me quite nostalgic for the simpler time when the balance on his law school was the largest amount we owed!), but it is a thank you to the school who gave Mick his career.  ☺
 

Can I get a WHOOP! WHOOP! ?

MOTY Moments

Mother of the Year. What we call moments when you were, uh, not....the best you could have been. Often said lifting a wine glass while sheepishly recounting the story.  Two spring to mind.

Today, Claire brought me the pickle jar. We love pickles here. Buy them, seriously, by the gallon as well as the small jars. When I buy the Clausen spears they have a shelf life of about 34 minutes. The Vlasic petite dills? Not more than 22. Well, today she brought me a jar and it just had two oval slices. I fished those out and she asked for more. I said they were all gone. She asked, "Can I drink the pickle juice?" I said sure. I thought she would take a sip. I must say that she comes to the love of pickle juice naturally. When I have a tummy ache, I often reach for a pickle jar and take a swig of pickle juice. And Daddy calls it the "secret ingredient" of his Bloody Marys.

I was transferring a file for work and not paying much attention. Claire went over to the sippy cup drawer and poured the rest of the "juice" from the jar into a sippy cup and then came and sat on my lap. Fast forward 30 minutes and I was on a Skype phone call with our friends the Higgins' and I noticed that she was slurping down pickle juice from a sippy cup.  Not a sip or a gulp. She had drank quite a bit of the pickle juice.

One hour later she had the most diarrhea that I had ever seen. Twenty solid minutes.  Her tummy didn't hurt. No fever. And then it was over. I'm pretty sure it was the pickle juice.  I am, say it with me, the Mother of the Year.

A few weeks ago, this same sweet Claire Bear noticed that her big sisters were eating snack sized bags of chips. She asked if she could get some, I was (surprise!) trying to finish up some work and quickly acquiesced.  She brought the cool ranch Doritos bag to me and said something that sounded like baby talk.  And I l-o-v-e baby talk...with babies. Even toddlers. But she's almost four.  When you're trying to ask for something and you're nearly four years old....please ask nicely. So I said, "Claire, we do not talk baby talk. Try again." She said the mumbo jumbo again. I repeated myself, a little more sternly, "Claire, we do NOT talk baby talk. You know how to speak properly. Please ask me again."  My sweet little bear has the melt-down perfected perfectly. Her bottom lip starts to quiver. The faucets turn on. And she cries pathetically,

"I WAS TRYING TO SAY IT IN JAPANESE!!!!" 

Turns out that my little girl who I send to an immersion, all-Japanese, all-the-time preschool for 7 hours each day, has picked up some Japanese words. And she was trying to say, "Open please" in Japanese. "Akete Kudasai."  And what I communicated to her with my response was, "We speak American in this house!"

I'm telling you...I'm the Mother of the Year!

Audrey "the model" Wagoner - Cherry Blossoms

Audrey has reached the age where the river is not as fun as getting her picture taken. Perhaps it's because the last few photo shoots have been so amazing, but she now LOVES getting her picture taken! And if you were as photogenic as she is at 12 (and 4 days on the date of this shoot) wouldn't you be excited to have your photo taken as well? (I am still not this lucky and I'm 40!)

I love this one, but Audrey doesn't. She doesn't like her hair. (When people would pay big bucks to have hair like hers!)

She was a champ because her shirt that she picked out in early March and we based the rest of the outfits around did not come in and she scrambled at the last minute for an outfit. I thought this one was awesome, but I totally get that she was disappointed!

This one is such a good "smiling with the eyes" picture!

Audrey doesn't like the ones of her not smiling with her teeth as much as the ones with teeth.

This one is Audrey's favorite and is IS such a beautiful one!

GrandDad? Which one?

Maddie, my 21 year old niece told me to get this one edited of Audrey. I think Audrey really looks like Maddie here!!!!

So, as you can imagine, Audrey doesn't like this one, but I'm pretty sure she's the only one in the world.

Soooooooo striking!

Great picture of Daddy and his first little girl!

Again, softer is best with the Daddy and girl!

You are a beautiful girl, Audrey! I'm trying to cherish each day because I'm going to blink my eyes and it's going to be six years later and you'll be off to college!

I love you Audrey!!!!!

Olivia's Cherry Blossom Pictures

Olivia is my sweet, responsible girl who is planning on being a teacher some day! She is an amazing artist and is taking art lessons from a wife here on base. One of her lessons she painted a dead fish and even held its eye! I told her, "Wow Olivia! This may be a moment where we look back and say, 'This is where you decided to become a doctor!" She got very worried and said, "Mommy, I want to be a teacher." :) 

At the tender age of 7 1/2 she is part little girl and part big. I think these pictures capture that perfectly, especially if you could see the pictures in my mind of her running down to the river and playing in the dirt between shoots and having to be called back to pose some more. ☺

This one, with the sun behind her head, highlights my sweet Angel Olivia perfectly!

These were before the river playing adventures!

This is Olivia's favorite one of herself. Miss Danielle instructed her to smile without showing her teeth. She really concentrated and did it like a pro!



Which one is your favorite, GrandDad?



This one is after the river playing. There was some spitting on my hands and scrubbing that went on! ☺

She looks so grown-up here!

I love this one! She looks like she's up to something!

The yellow flowers...I love how they look like bubbles in black and white!

This one fooled me....I thought it was the softer version, but it's the vibrant one. It's so good!

Which one do you like best?

Olivia's playing at the river cut down her camera time, but luckily the ones that Danielle took are all amazing!

I love you O!!!!!

Claire Bear Cherry Blossom Pics

I'm not sure what we did to deserve Claire. She is so funny and pleasant and sweet and just a good girl. She can be naughty, please do not misunderstand me....the entire interior of our house in Florida had to be painted because of Claire Picasso Wagoner....but usually when she's naughty I just need to go down the list like you do when you have a baby. Tired? Hungry? Cold? Combination of all three? Fix that and she's back to being my sweet, FUNNY girl!

Her eyes are so captivating. Mick says they're like a wolf's. :) Light blue with this gorgeous dark blue rim around them.

This version is a bit softer...which one do you like best? Vibrant or soft? For most of the pictures, I'm leaning toward vibrant.

In the black and white you can even notice her eyes with the dark rim around the outside!

Where's Claire? Peek!

GrandDad, let me know which one you want!

She has such a great full smile!!!

I just LOVE this one! Miss Danielle was getting closer to her and Claire was playing with her by dipping lower and lower. So cute!

I think this one loses something in the black and white, but of course it's still beautiful!

Daddy looked so handsome and was so happy to get a picture with all of the "big" girls!

This is one of those that I think the "softer" version might be best.

I L-O-V-E this one! Claire laughs so much and very often puts her hand over her mouth. PRECIOUS!

You're a sweet, funny girl Claire!

I love you very much Claire Cecelia!!!