Week 2

Hello!

Well, it's been a busy time for us -- there is downtime most mornings -- my boy goes to soccer camp for half the day, then we pick him up and go to my parents' or swimming at my aunt's or out to meet friends. Yesterday, my parents took the kids for the whole day, so my husband I could go to Montreal to meet some very dear friends from Japan. My friends kindly offered to host our boy should he ever want to do a homestay abroad. My girl may not be ready for that adventure for another few years, but who knows?

The friends we are staying with remain fabulous and we are really enjoying our visit here. My boy is quite active and happy it seems, but my girl still likes to spend a lot of time alone. I was thinking about it today - she was surrounded by kids for years, and it was a loud and unsettling environment, so I won't deny her as much quiet alone time as she likes. For a while though, tired of her refusing my offers to do things together, I just stopped offering. Today, I figured I'll start offering again and give her the right of refusal, so asked if she wanted to go for a walk to a nearby shopping mall to get souvenirs. She said she didn't want to walk, so I'll go alone -- which is fine with me, because as you know, I like lots of alone time, too. However, last night we hung out together in my bed doing our own things -- she playing a game on her DS, me reading, with our legs touching, so we try to connect when we can. She's doing this new thing where she stands behind me and puts her hands on my shoulders and jumps. I'm happy with whatever contact she cares to initiate!

Both kids are using a little more English. My boy speaks it more, and my girl understands it more, which is great. We don't push them although it's obvious that my father gets annoyed and thinks we should have the kids fluently bilingual. However, the other day, my boy screwed up his courage and formed a whole question to ask my mother "May I have a diet coke?" My girl, not to be outdone, asked for grapes in the same way. She's actually picking things up really fast -- there was an English-medium daycare at the orphanage she lived in, so she has English in there somewhere!

Both kids got tons of cash from my generous aunts and we went to spend it toys. However, the kids still prefer their tech and don't play with the toys that much, although the boy likes his drone and does play with it a bit. I feel like my aunts gave ｔｈｅｍ money for nothing, but what can you do? Maybe they'll play with them later.

I'm not seeing as many friends this time as I'd like, but I know you understand that it's a little more difficult when kids' needs have to be seen to, especially when those kids have a limited understanding of the language. However, I'll be back staying in my own apartment when I bring  students to Canada with me in February and will have plenty of time to socialize.

Still feeling anxious for no reason, especially in the morning. Spent the first 45 minutes of the day on the treadmill at my friends' place and will do that every day from now on. Still taking the anti-anxiety meds and will try to get something a little stronger, because these are for short-term use and I think I need something a little more heavy duty -- will work on that when I return to Japan. By the way, my GP, who is a facebook friend, checks in on me regularly, which is wonderful, don't you think? (he reads these blogs, too, so Hi, amazing Dr. K!).

xo
Mel